Barker, Ellen: - Ellen Barker grew up in Kansas City, where she had a front-row seat to the demographic shifts, the hope, and the turmoil of the civil rights era of the 1960s. She has a bachelor's degree in urban studies from Washington University in Saint Louis, where she developed a passion for how cities work, and don't. She began her career as an urban planner in Saint Louis and then spent many years working for large consulting firms specializing in urban infrastructure, first as a tech writer-editor and later managing large data systems. She now lives in Los Altos, California, with her husband and their dog, Boris, who is the inspiration for the German shepherd in East of Troost. This is Ellen's first novel.