Born and raised in the Northeast, I am a writer, reporter and author of a debut book, Melted Away: A Memoir of Climate Change and Caregiving in Peru (LSU Press, March 2024). My articles have appeared in the Miami Herald, NBC.com, Village Voice, Huffington Post, Caribbean Travel & Life and Miami New Times, with fiction and creative nonfiction in North Dakota Quarterly, Red Rock Review, Portland Review and New Delta Review. Awards include an individual artist grant in literature from the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs and a writer's grant from Miami-Dade County.

I am drawn to liminal states — geographically and creatively — and the inspiration for much of my work derives from the 30+ years I’ve spent in Florida and Peru, much of that as the partner of Peruvian-born photographer Jorge Vera. From 1991 to 2001, I lived on Miami Beach, where I worked as the staff writer for Miami Book Fair International and where I founded “Telling Our Stories,” a memoir-writing workshop for Jewish elders. Following the birth of our son, Sam, we moved to north to Gainesville, where I earned an MFA in creative writing with novelists David Leavitt and Jill Ciment.

In 2007, we relocated to Lima, Peru, where Jorge and I began documenting the effects of climate change on indigenous cultures and founded the NGO Clima y Cultura (Climate and Culture). I also blogged as An American in Lima, focusing on social justice, the environment and life as an expat; that work was recognized with two “Just Posts for a Just World” awards, a write-up in Nat Geo Adventure and assignments as a freelance field producer in Peru for NBC Nightly News, the TODAY Show and Dateline. My most gratifying experience with NBC was coordinating the NBC Nightly News special “In Peru, Melting Glaciers Lead to Water Wars” with correspondent Anne Thompson, seen by 8.5 million viewers just prior to the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009.

During the seven years I lived in Peru, I spent 18 months caring for my formerly estranged father with Alzheimer’s, a transformative experience I recount in "Melted Away." After his death in 2012, we returned to the United States, where I became a volunteer advocate for the Alzheimer’s Association, advocating on Capitol Hill and Tallahassee for Alzheimer’s patients and their unpaid family caregivers. Since 2018, I have worked as a writer and editor for University of Florida Advancement and the UF Alumni Association.

During my editorial career, I have written as Barbara Drake, my birth name. In fiction and creative nonfiction, I now write as Barbara Drake-Vera, a nod to my dual identity straddling North American and South American cultures. It was in Peru that I came to embrace collectivist values, which I believe are essential to the survival and well-being of ourselves, our communities and the planet.

I am now working on a series of novels set in South Beach in the 1990s and early 2000s.