Confessions of a Librarian (Foster) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—June 27, 1948
• Where—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Temple University; M.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York


Barbara Foster is an Associate Professor and research librarian at City Univerity of New York. She is co-author of three highly acclaimed books, including the biographies Forbidden Journey (Harper/Collins) and The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel (third printing Overlook, 2007). The New York Times reviewed her biography of David-Neel favorably on three occasions: the “Bear in Mind” column called it “a wonderful biography,” and “New and Noteworthy” stated: “Hers was a great human life very well written up.” The New York Review of Books rated the biography "one of the best books of all-time." Her biography of Adah Isaacs Menken, America’s first superstar, A Dangerous Woman, was published in 2011 by Globe Pequot Press. She was profiled in the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung  and did a reading at New York University’s Deutsches Haus.

 Barbara is a world traveler in the tradition of the heroic women she writes about. She has acted as a referee for Britain's Royal Geographical Society. Barbara has lectured on David-Neel (the French explorer of Tibet) at universities, conferences, museums, and libraries worldwide—including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Cal Tech in the U.S., and Sidney, Buenos Aires, Prague, Mexico City, and Calgary among international venues.

Recently she spoke before an unprecedented joint meeting of the Harvard-MIT Club. Barbara has written numerous articles, for print and the Net, both scholarly and popular. These pieces have appeared in: New York Archives Magazine (2012) Tablet (Jewish magazine), Travel and Leisure, Richmond  Review (London), Drexel Onlline Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, Journal of the West, Culturefront (Summer 2000), Nineteenth Century (cover story--Spring 2002),  Jewish Quarterly, Jewish Currents  (2006), California Territorial Quarterly (2007), PopMatters, Ascent (Canada), Amarillo Bay, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Ego (Indian magazine) 3am (2009, UK)  Smith Magazine, Evergreen Review, Chimera (In English with French translation (2010), Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly as well as on  the Net in popular sites dealing with sexuality, such as Nerve, Clean Sheets, Diverse Publications (UK), Ruthie's Club, Phaze anthology, Oysters & Chocolate, and Lucrezia (Australia), Playgirl, Sliptongue, Ravenous  Romance anthology, Historynet. com, Huffington  Post, Koktejl (Magazine Czech Republic), 2013.

Barbara has also published dozens of poems in journals in every English speaking country.  She is included in Contemporary Authors, Who’s Who of American Women, Marquis Who’s Who.

 Barbara is joint author of Three in Love: Menages a Trois from Ancient to Modern Times (HarperSF, 1997), which is presently an Authors Guild Selection available on iUniverse and Amazon. The subject of favorable feature stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer and NY's Daily News. Entertainment Weekly praised Three, calling it “racy and engaging”; the Washington Post said: “the first serious study of collective intimacy”; The New Yorker called it “a people’s almanac of love triangle lore.”

Barbara has been on the “Curiosity” show (Discovery channel 2012), interviewed by the BBC (Channel Four), CBC, ARTE (EU TV—international distribution), S. Korea's SBS-TV, and CBS' 20/20 for TV documentaries on Polyamory, Eve Ensler’s latest documentary on love as well as for articles in the New York Post and the Times Literary Supplement.

She is at work on a sequel to Three, which will be the definitive study of the history and psychology of plural love. Barbara has completed her intimate memoir of her experiences in New York and other exotic locales: The Confessions Club: the Secret Life of a Sexy Librarian. (From the author.)

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