Barbara Ballinger

After earning her undergraduate (Barnard College) and graduate degrees (Hunter College) in art history and studio art, Barbara started her professional journalism career at the Special Publications Magazines of Conde Nast, known as the House & Garden Guides, under industry leader, Louis O. Gropp. She became known for her creativity in developing crafts stories, from artists in Santa Fe, NM, and Oaxaca, Mexico, and wrote her first book, which showcased how the bold graphics images of Amish quilts could be transformed into tactile needlepoint designs, Needlepoint Designs from Amish Quilts (Charles Scribner's, 1977). She also developed craft projects that readers could order.

Barbara started work on her MBA at New York University, and when she relocated to St. Louis, continued that degree at Washington University in St. Louis, while writing for the Post-Dispatch daily newspaper. Barbara had recognized that newspapers were starting business sections. She wrote about business topics and design, particularly retail and family firms. She co-authored her first family business book as a result of her family business knowledge with Margaret Crane, titled Corporate Bloodlines: The Future of the Family Firm (Carol Publications, 1989).

With relocation to Chicago and two young daughters, she started a freelance writing business, which showed her entrepreneurial spirit. She covered the diverse topics of design, family and retail business, personal finance, law, travel, food and entertaining.She also interviewed a wide variety of celebrities for newspapers and magazines and appeared as an expert herself on the Oprah Winfrey show about remodeling disasters. Among Barbara's original ideas was an analysis of small Chicago-area businesses in Crain's Chicago Business, for which she had area business leaders detail what the firms could do to improve sales, profits, visibility and morale.

With the rise of websites, Barbara jumped in and wrote a course guide about homeownership, delivered on the web, and an in-depth study of foreclosure do's and don'ts. She continue to write web content about architecture, design and real estate, including entire magazine issues about kitchens and bathrooms, gardens, small homes and small rooms.

Her national feature on new, mixed-use sustainable communities for Developer magazine, such as Serenbe outside Atlanta and National Harbor in Washington, D.C., was nominated for a prestigious business award. She wrote syndicated real estate and design articles and blog content for many publications, including the Chicago Trubune newspaper, Buildium's website, HGTV's website, Allstate's website, Hanley Woods' Multifamily Executive magazine and the National Association of Realtor magazine.

Barbara and long-time writing partner Crane and kitchen designer Jennifer Gilmer wrote The Kitchen bible for Images Publishing in 2015, and Barbara and landscape designer Michael Glassman authored The Garden Bible for the same publisher a year later. Barbara and Crane also wrote about their personal journeys as new singles in Suddenly Single after 50: The Girlfriends' Guide to Navigating Loss, Restoring Hope and Rebuilding Your Life (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016). Next out will be Not Dead Yet: Rebooting your Life after 50, also for Roman & Littlefield in summer 2021.

Barbara continues her freelance writing career, primarily for the National Association of Realtors' website and magazine and for some of its associations, and also for the National Apartment Association and its magazine, Units.

And once Not Dead Yet is on its way, Barbara and Crane are most likely to be working on their next books. ,