About  |  Books by Barbara  |  Awards & Accolades  |  Links  |  Contact

 
AUTHOR
BUSINESS WRITER
CORPORATE TRAINER

I have worn so many hats in my professional life that I wanted to have a place to gather up my business achievements, my passion for writing fiction, my concern for the world we live in, my fascination with history—and present myself to you as a whole person.

To find out more, please read on…












  MEET BARBARA E. CRANE  

The great loves of my life are my husband, my children, my grandchildren and my writing. On any given day, one or the other may take precedence, but I can’t be without any one of them for very long without feeling the effects.

While I prefer to keep my family life private, I’m happy to tell you about my writing life. In 1978, I discovered a writing group led by the poet and novelist Holly Prado Northup. Since then, I’ve spent three hours a week in her Los Angeles-based writing workshop, surrounded by a remarkably consistent group of talented writers. The workshop gave me the opportunity return to writing after 15 years away, and I plunged in.

 

During the day and often into the night, I earned a living as a corporate trainer, consultant and technical writer as well as writing for magazines and corporations. In between times—when there was time in between—I wrote short stories, creative nonfiction, journal pieces, brief memoirs of travel to Peru, Japan, France, Britain, Tanzania, India, Nepal, Costa Rica, Canada and the 40 or more American cities I visited during the course of my work or with my family. I’ve had some luck publishing fiction and creative non-fiction in newspapers and literary magazines, sometimes winning prizes.

I also wrote two novels. The Oldest Things in the World was published in 2001, and When Water Was Everywhere publishes this year.

 

I have a number of other passions, too. I love to spend time with good friends. I’m concerned about the rights of indigenous people, worldwide. I love to hike and to cook (not at the same time!). I enjoy cultivating a drought-resistant garden. I visit art museums and cultural museums and centers wherever I go. I’m continually fascinated by people, the lives we make for ourselves, the challenges we face and the people we love.

Most of all, I love to write. I’ve been taking myself seriously as a writer for 35 years. Writing gives meaning and purpose to my life.

Long Beach, California, 2016

         

  A LOOK AT BARBARA’S CORPORATE EXPERIENCE  

Barbara has over 25 years of experience as a freelance journalist, a business writer, and corporate consultant. She has written for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, trade journals and newspapers.

After leaving a successful career in education in the late 1970’s, Barbara co-created and managed a training company, CraneMorley. In addition to business management, Barbara was responsible for writing, project management, and instructional design for over 70 print, audio, and video programs. Under her supervision, CraneMorley, Inc. grew to encompass a large client base that included the major Japanese automakers in Southern California and forty national aerospace companies.

 

After she sold CraneMorley in the early 1990’s Barbara focused on news, magazine and corporate writing assignments. She wrote regularly for companies, nonprofits, newspapers, magazines and online publications. She was a contributing writer for the bi-monthly Long Beach Business Journal, writing articles on real estate, healthcare, finance, aerospace, banking, hospitality and the arts, as well as profiles of cities and corporations. She has also designed corporate training programs and taught writing within corporations. Her clients in these fields included Fortune 500 companies from the pharmaceutical, high tech, aerospace, entertainment, financial and media worlds.

 

Barbara Crane graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a major in history and a minor in English. Among her awards and commendations are an Award of Excellence in Writing from the Society of Technical Communication, an international professional organization, and the Torch Award for Outstanding Service by the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Society of Training and Development. She also won ForeWord Magazine’s silver medal for fiction in 2002 for her novel, The Oldest Things in the World.

         

© 2016 Barbara Crane. All rights reserved

LinkedIn Follow me on Facebook Instagram Email me Home page