Barbara Drake-Vera 🦙

Great launch for MELTED AWAY at @BooksandBooks Coral Gables last night. Owner Mitchell Kaplan made me feel so welcomed and at home. A dream come true for this debut author: to read at the great indie bookstore where I was once a bookseller. 🩷🩷 @lsupress #BookTwitter #memoir

Thank you, Florida Book Awards, for honoring MELTED AWAY with a silver medal in general nonfiction!

“Men often ask me, Why are your female characters so paranoid? It’s not paranoia. It’s recognition of their situation.” —Margaret Atwood buff.ly/3q4rkOJ

@MichaelEMann Of course you are, Dr. Mann, and I'm coming with you!

I'll be there. Details to come...

February 27 marks the one-year publishing anniversary of MELTED AWAY! Thank you to all the fellow writers, editors, booksellers, friends, festival organizers, and awards judges who made this past year possible. And, of course, my wonderful team at @lsupress!

Approximately 700 employees at the Centers for Disease Control have just suddenly been terminated. This comes as Trump’s Bird Flu crisis is worsening nationwide, causing all-time record egg prices.

Our colleagues at the @AP are the best in the business, total professionals and straight as they come. Since I started covering the White House in 1996, no president has punished a mainstay of the press pool to enforce his personal choice of what words they use in their stories.

@SketchesbyBoze I once spent my winter break at college holed up in my apartment, for 21 days, reading War & Peace while it snowed and snowed and snowed.

a friend recently shared that she’s having trouble getting anything done because she’s become obsessed with a very old, 1,300-page novel and couldn’t stop reading it, and it turns out the novel is War & Peace, and I just can’t give up hope on this world yet.

@LorenzoTheCat @storycircle @lsupress Thank you!

@BarbDrakeVera @storycircle @lsupress Brava!

Excited to share that Melted Away has been shortlisted for a Sarton Award from @storycircle in the memoir category. Read the full shortlist here: storycircle.org/contest/story-… @lsupress

“When she broke on Earth, the light in her was not broken! We cannot break light—nor can we destroy it!” ~ Joy Harjo, Mvkoke/Creek Nation, 🦬…✨

We remember the murdered Jewish men, women, and children, alongside many other groups who suffered at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust: Sinti and Roma, political prisoners, disabled individuals, homosexuals and many others. #WeRemember #HolocaustMemorialDay

Find me on Bluesky, @barbaradrakevera. I update this site infrequently now.

🚨BREAKING! THIS is SOUTH Louisiana! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Today, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde boldly called out Donald Trump for his hatred and bigotry at the National Cathedral Prayer Service. Now, the GOP is attacking her for speaking truth to power. RETWEET if you stand with Bishop Budde against Trump!

There is a BLIZZARD WARNING for beaches on the Gulf of Mexico ❄️ This is insane 🤯

NEW VIDEO: I’m in Pensacola, Florida, near the border. Already at 2” and it’s still snowing heavy. This is a truly historic event. #Snow #Florida @spann @stormhour

Snowman, Jackson square, New Orleans

@LorenzoTheCat Power to you, my friend. What Lorenzo stands for is needed now more than ever.

Moving forward as The Spirit of Lorenzo the Cat.

Welcome to Sunny … oops… Florida!

@Terrainorg "A witness to beauty and loss." Well put.

The Prologue to Barbara Drake-Vera's Melted Away: A Memoir of Climate Change and Caregiving in Peru finds her among pilgrims, a witness to beauty and loss, at a melting glacier, the Lord of the Shining Snow Star. terrain.org/2025/nonfictio… #essay #loss #glaciers #peru #melt