Announcing My New Book!

I am thrilled/over the moon/gobsmacked to announce that my adventures as a reporter and caregiver in Lima and the Andes will be published next year as Melted Away: A Memoir of Climate Change and Caregiving in Peru, by LSU Press.

Longtime readers of this blog will remember that El Fotografo and I, along with El Hijo, moved to Lima in 2007 and lived there for seven years. I was busy documenting climate change and writing feature stories for U.S. outlets when, in 2011, my estranged father in Florida was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and all that activity ground to a half. We took my father into our house in Miraflores, and a series of events unfolded that I could never have imagined.

I’m writing now as Barbara Drake-Vera, a nod to my dual identities as an americana and as a peruana.

For my pub date in late March, I’m setting up a few launch parties — why have just one? — including an event at Books & Books, in Coral Gables, on April 10, at 7 p.m.  I’ll be posting more about that soon. Please visit my new website to more details.

Wish me well in the months ahead, and thanks to all of you who befriended me as An American in Lima!

p.s. This isn’t the book cover. It’s just something I created as a mood board, but it does give an idea of one of the settings, the ancient indigenous pilgrimage of Qoyllur Rit’i.