Barbara Kiehne Younger

Barbara Younger just launched Friend for the Ride: Encouraging Words for the Menopause Roller Coaster: ( http://friendfortheride.com).  The blog is a witty, upbeat view of the Change of Life, with insights for younger women too.  (Men are also welcome!) As a visual accent on each post, Barbara photographs items from her collections, such as her husband’s childhood egg cups, a doll trunk, a Becker’s potato chip tin, embroidered handkerchiefs, and a portrait painted of her mom at Duke in 1944.

On the other end of the age spectrum, Barbara writes books and creative curriculum for children.  In 2008, she earned an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. You can read more about her life as an author at http://barbarakyounger.com  She also works as a writing tutor at Piedmont Community College in Yanceyville, North Carolina.

Barbara has fond memories of her days at UNC School of Library and Information Science, from The Block through discovering in Wilson Library the old volumes she needed for her master’s paper on a now obscure 19th century children’s writer.  Favorite profs and courses were Humanities Literature with Haynes McMullen and Children’s Literature with Mary Kingsbury. She writes, “My education at the SILS has served me quite well, starting with my first career as a children’s librarian, then as a teacher of children’s literature and now as a blogger and an author.” 

Since Barbara and her husband Cliff live in a 180-year-old house in nearby Hillsborough, she’s still able to dine on Franklin Street often and then take a memory lane stroll past the Old Well.