About

Barbara Drake is an American writer, blogger, teacher and editor, who is active in both print and multimedia. She moved from the United States to Peru in 2007 to investigate the ancient glacier pilgrimage of Qoyllur Rit’i,  in collaboration with photographer Jorge Vera, with whom she co-founded the NGO Clima y Cultura. Since then she has become known for her writings about social justice in Peru and the impacts of climate change on Andean culture, as well as for her essays on living abroad as an American.

She also helps news teams from NBC Nightly News, the Today Show and Dateline report on environmental issues and breaking news in Peru.

Barbara’s blog An American in Lima has been featured in National Geographic Traveler and was named a Best of 2009 finalist  by the blogging roundtable Just Posts for a Just World, which honors personal blogs that, in the words of its founders, “speak to the same thing — the lifting up of our planet and all that inhabit it.”

L to R: NBC News environmental correspondent Anne Thompson, local community leader Sra. Espinoza, glaciologist Thomas Condom and production assistant Barbara Drake at Pastoruri Glacier, Oct. 2009, during filming of NBC Nightly News special report on Peru water wars

Prior to moving to Lima, Barbara lived in Florida where she wrote for local newspapers and national travel magazines.  She is the author/coauthor of seven guidebooks to South Florida, Guatemala and Peru, including the highly recommended  Knopf City Guide Miami.  While in Gainesville she earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Florida and received several awards and grants for her fiction, including an Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida, Cultural Affairs Division.

Earlier in her career Barbara lived in New York, where she edited Music Alive and researched and proofread for New York, People, Sports Illustrated and other magazines.  (More about her editorial experience here.)   

Barbara’s features, essays and photo stories have appeared in the Huffington Post, MSNBC.com, Village Voice, Miami Herald and Miami New Times, among other publications.  Her fiction has been featured in New Delta Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Red Rock Review and Iris.  She lives with her family in Lima, Peru.

Since 2009 she has taught English at the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (UPC) in Lima. Since 2011 she has been helping to develop the English coursework for the university’s new degree in Professional Translation & Interpretation. She was recently honored as ”Teacher of the Year”  by the TIP department.