Barbara Ann Yoder
writer, editor, teacher, coach
Get inspired. Write with joy!
About Barbara
Publications
Barbara signs The Recovery Resource Book at bookstore launch party.
Her first book, The Recovery Resource Book (Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1990), was for many years listed by The New York Public Library as one of six basic references for the recovery movement.
She is currently completing a novel.
Training
Barbara got her English degree in the late seventies, drove solo cross-country to California, and has worked as a writer and editor ever since. In the mid-nineties Barbara went back to school and got an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University, working primarily with Maxine Chernoff and Molly Giles. Since then she’s attended master classes taught by Ernest Hebert, Janet Fitch, Ellen McLaughlin, Carol Maso, and Alan Watt.
Community
Barbara volunteers annually at the Bay Area Book Festival. She regularly participates in generative writing sessions led by Elizabeth Rosner and meets online and in annual retreats with the Flamingos, a writing support group formed in 2012. She’s grateful to her friends, mentors, and teachers for their generosity and wisdom. She believes that developing a literary community is key to inspiring confidence and writing with joy.
Seven of nine Flamingos flock together at a writing retreat in northern California. Left to right: Michel Wing, Lisa Rizzo, Marcia Meier, Ruth Thompson, Tania Pryputneiwicz, Sandra Hunter, and Barbara Rockman. Not pictured: Jayne Benjulian and Barbara Ann Yoder, who took this photo. Ripley (front left) directed the shot.
Teaching and Coaching
Barbara offers coaching services for writers and teaches an online course in editing and publishing for the Master of Arts in Professional Writing program at New England College. She draws inspiration from student and client success, as well as from her years of working with some of the best writers, editors, and writing teachers in the country.
Photo by Randy Brow.
Professional Experience
For several years Barbara served as executive director of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and on the advisory board of the MFA in fiction and nonfiction program at Southern New Hampshire University (now called Mountainview MFA). She was also a senior editor at National Writing Project.
When she lived in New Hampshire, Barbara found a vibrant writing community at NHWP.
Throughout her career she worked for both independent publishers and major trade publishers and media companies—from O’Reilly & Associates to HarperCollins and AOL. She edited websites, blogs, e-zines, magazines, and books; created marketing collateral for publishers; and developed strategic communications and fundraising appeals for literary nonprofits.
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