BARBARA SOUTHARD is the author of two works of fiction. The Pinch of the Crab, a collection of ten stories set in Puerto Rico, explored social conflicts of island life, mostly from the female perspective. In the historical novel Unruly Human Hearts, Barbara once again explores personal crises embedded in social conflict from the point of view of a female protagonist, Elizabeth Tilton, the woman involved in the famous Beecher-Tilton scandal of the 1870s. Unruly Human Hearts won the IPPY Awards Silver Medal for Historical Fiction (2025) and was recognized as an American Fiction Awards finalist for Literary Fiction (2025).
Barbara grew up in New York City, holds a PhD in history from the University of Hawaii, and has served as a professor and
