Rodney Barker traces his desire to become a writer to his unusual upbringing. Raised a Quaker in Connecticut, his parents opened their home to unfortunate people from around the world: Fresh Air Fund kids from the inner cities, Japanese survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Polish women from concentration camps who were the subject of Nazi medical experiments. As a young boy, he sat in on the conversations with journalists who came to the house to interview these people, and this experience pointed him in the direction of becoming a journalist/author himself.
After graduating from Knox College with a bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Barker spent two years in the Masters Program in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, before embarking on a full-time writing career. A stint as the editor of a weekly newspaper in Durango, Colorado, was followed by a period of time as a freelancer writing investigative articles for regional and national magazines. He then turned to narrative non-fiction books.
His first book - "The Hiroshima Maidens" - was published by Viking/Penguin in 1985. It told the remarkable tale of a humanitarian project that took place in the 1950s when a group of 25 women disfigured in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima were brought to America for plastic and reconstructive surgery. After the project, the women returned to Japan and disappeared. Barker received a travel grant that allowed him to go to Japan where he tracked the women down and persuaded them to share their tragic stories with him.
His second book - "The Broken Circle: A True Story of Murder and Magic in Indian Country" - was published by Simon & Schuster, and in it, Barker revisits a brutal crime that shocked a New Mexico bordertown to the Navajo Reservation, when three teenage boys were arrested for the torture-slaying of a group of Indian men. The book not only chronicles a heinous crime, it examines racial and cultural differences, probes the psyches of the victims as well as the killers, and juxtaposes the state's juvenile justice system with the traditional Navajo belief in witchcraft as a means of rebalancing a world out of order.
His third book - "Dancing with the Devil" - was also published by Simon & Schuster, and here, Barker takes advantage of research opportunities provided by the fall of the Soviet Union to reopen the Sex-for-Secrets Marine Scandal of 1987. Working with American intelligence agencies before travelling to Moscow and teaming up with retired KGB officers, he was able to get to the bottom of one of the last big espionage cases of the Cold War.
His fourth book - "And the Waters Turned to Blood" - again published by Simon & Schuster, is a dramatic true account of the emergence of a toxic micro-organism in the polluted waters of North Carolina, and the battle waged by a female scientist who discovered "the cell from hell" to get state environmental and health agencies to respond.
In 2003 took a break from writing to start The Trail of Painted Ponies, a giftware company that produced one of the all-time bestselling horse collectibles in America, along with several popular art and gift books.
Mr. Barker's books have appeared on bestseller lists, have been optioned for film, and have been translated into foreign languages. His media appearances include Good Morning America, Dateline NBC, CNN, and the Charlie Rose Show.
He is currently at work on a new novel.
Please visit the Official Author website of Rodney Barker at: www.rodneybarkerauthor.com
