The L.A. Times is putting off the launch of Image, a new weekly fashion and personal image section, until well into next year, and some travel is being curtailed to save money. But open positions are still being filled. National editor Scott Kraft on Friday announced a new hire for Atlanta: Ellen Barry, a writer for the Boston Globe.

The memo follows.

To: The Staff
From: Scott Kraft, National Editor

We're very pleased to announce that Ellen Barry, a writer for the Boston Globe, will be joining the National staff in January as bureau chief in Atlanta.

Ellen has been covering mental health, particularly the mentally ill, for the Globe for the past two years. Before that, she roamed New England, writing splendid Sunday pieces for the Globe. During her tenure at the Globe, she also was dispatched for temporary duty in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan (in 2001) and U.S.-occupied Iraq (last summer).

Her previous experience includes stints at the Boston Phoenix, where she was a feature writer whose assignments included covering the Russian election, and at The Moscow Times, where she was a staff writer in the early 1990s.

While at the Globe, Ellen's "Lost Boys" series, in which she followed a dozen teenage boys from an East African refugee camp to new homes in the United States, was a Pulitzer Feature Writing finalist and ASNE winner in 2002.

She has a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from Yale.