About Author

Barbara was made in Japan, born in Guam, and made her way through various ports of call to Colorado. There, her mother—an English literature teacher—passed along her own love of reading by starting Barbara on comic books. Which might explain why Barbara grew up to adore H. Rider Haggard, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Leo Tolstoy, and Shakespeare in equal measure. When she was three, Barbara told her mother she wanted was to be a writer. She also wanted to be a sword fighter, an astronaut, to conduct an orchestra, go in search of lost cities and save animals. If only she’d known early on that she could do all those things—at least in her imagination—by being a writer. She got there. It just took a while. But that is the best way to live life—great journeys are as much about the detours as the destination.

In addition to her career as a technical writer and instructional designer, Barbara worked as a raptor rehabilitator, piano teacher and performer, and a sword fighter. She served as the Director of Education for the country’s largest public astronomical observatory and taught Beethoven to kids. It was all great fun. But then a wildfire burned down her family’s home. It was that moment. The one that made her look around and think: “Weren’t there other things I planned to do? Hadn’t I dreamed of writing novels—lots of novels—and traveling the world?” For Barbara, losing everything also meant she had everything to gain.

Her revitalized resolve to be a writer resulted in the Special Agent Sydney Parnell crime series, starting with the award-winning Blood on the Tracks. Fall of 2021 brought a new series about forensic semiotician Evan Wilding, who interprets the signs and symbols left by killers. Coming in November 2024 is Barbara’s first standalone novel, a family drama/spy thriller. And traveling is now in the stars! After trips to Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, and (this fall) Turkey, she plans to springboard off the miles she’s logged hiking the Colorado Rockies and scale Mt. Kilimanjaro before the snow melts. Find more of her writing at Living Against the Dark.