Why would Barbara Clarke move nearly forty times in her lifetime?
(If you do the math, that's packing and unpacking every 2.7 years.)
What's wrong with her? Doesn't she covet the American Dream?
Why would she finally build a house after all that conscious wandering?
Why in the Pacific Northwest?

Getting to Home: Sojourn in a Perfect House explains this and more in her new memoir - an account of constructing a house and reconstructing who she is. While learning the ropes as a novice homebuilder (with a contractor and architect) her all-male construction orchestra taught her a lesson or two about houses and life. Getting to Home combines her sense of humor with her thoughtful analysis of complex issues.

Aside from refining the art of setting up a new household, Barbara is the mother of two daughters, and works as a grant and freelance writer. She has written extensively for corporate clients, trade magazines, and newspapers on the topics of health and wellness, hometown concerns, and the growing need of affordable housing.

Barbara is known for never staying anywhere for very long, and for doing things that she's never done before. She went to Kenya to work on a master's degree; to a farm in Missouri, after dropping out of corporate America, in order to develop as a writer; and straight from the farm to New York City to work as an intern at WigWag magazine. She's been to Cuba to see what a community-based universal healthcare system looks like; and fled a career in managed care when skyboxes and raising rates became the subjects du jour in the executive meetings.

In 1999, Barbara succumbed to the allure of the Pacific Northwest and now makes her home on Bainbridge Island. She hopes to live there for a very long time - with a few more adventures thrown in to keep life interesting.