My quick bio: I'm a strategic storyteller and content leader who is passionate about the intersection of media and marketing to foster a more sustainable world. I’ve written about everything from foraging green juice ingredients to the hidden costs of conventional agriculture.
I am the executive editor of The Brockovich Report, a newsletter from Erin Brockovich talking about the national water crisis, toxic chemicals, and other problems in your backyard, while also pursuing freelance writing and editing projects.
My author credits include:
Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It (co-author with Erin Brockovich), named one of the best Environmental Policy books of all time.
The After Cancer Diet: How To Live Healthier Than Ever Before
For those who want to read the longer version: As a curious and sensitive child, I started writing to understand the world around me. At the age of nine, through a local library, I published my first book, Bandit's Adventures, which followed my cat around the world and displayed my early interest in travel. I grew up in Florida, but left for the windy, cold winters of Chicago to pursue a career in journalism. My freshman class was the first one with more women than men. Quiet computer labs were just starting to replace rowdy rooms filled with typewriter levers and dinging space bars. I got my first email address in college and didn’t get my first cell phone until I graduated.
I started exploring alternative modes of healing in college, taking my first yoga class, falling in love with sun salutations and chanting. I helped organize a housing co-operative (MOSAIC) where we practiced consensus building to make decisions and shared whole-food vegetarian meals (just ask me about tofu scrambles) and household chores. After graduation, I pursued my investigative journalism training with a writing fellowship at Mother Jones Magazine in San Francisco in one of the year’s they won a National Magazine Award. As my writing career progressed, I became interested in food politics seeing the rise of factory farming, GMOs, toxins and their connection to our health. With a desire to get my hands dirty and flee to a simpler, organic-friendly world, I moved to New Zealand and spent a year WWOOFing, writing about organic issues and shopping at farmers' markets.
Once I returned to the States, I craved that deep connection to the land and pure, locally grown foods. I became a Master Gardener and started growing my own vegetables in a small cottage home near the beach in Southern California where I worked at a gardening magazine. I moved to New York City to go back to school and study at Integrative Nutrition, learning everything I could about health and healing through traditional foods and studying more than 100 different dietary theories. After many exciting years in NYC, I spent a weekend in Asheville, NC, and then a summer studying herbs, hiking, practicing Acro yoga, and foraging for wild foods. I soon left the big city for life in one of the most bio-diverse areas of the world.
After years of living in a small mountain town, I felt a little like Goldilocks. New York City was too big; Asheville felt a little too small. That’s when I found Richmond, VA, a mix of urban and natural landscapes with deep historical roots and creative vibes. I’m just a two-hour drive to the beach and a two-hour train ride to DC, combining my love for the ocean and my go-getter, let’s-change-the-world attitude.
MY WRITING LIFE
I've been researching and writing about health, food politics, and environmental issues for many years. I worked as a writer and prodcuer for Omega Institute, where I interviewed many of the country’s top top holistic and creative experts. My writing has been published in Mother Jones Magazine, NBCNews.com, Yahoo!HealthNews, The Guardian, Thrive Global, CNN.com, Edible Brooklyn, RebootwithJoe.com, Namawell.com, CleanPlates, Healthline.com, EmpowHer.com, Inhabitat.com, Organic New Zealand and more.
I co-wrote and edited Integrative Nutrition: Feed Your Hunger for Health and Happiness and worked in the marketing and publishing departments for Integrative Nutrition, the largest holistic nutrition school in the country. I worked as an editor at Random House in the digital books division for a cookbook project. I had the pleasure of working with Joe Cross on his New York Times best-selling book The Reboot with Joe Juice Diet. I edited and contributed to the Go Green East Harlem Cookbook (Jones Books) and Simple Food for Busy Families: The Whole Life Nutrition Approach (Ten Speed Press). As a California-certified Master Gardener, I wrote a monthly vegetable column and volunteered in the teen garden at Phoenix House in Southern California. I served for years on the board president for Our Voice, an anti-sexual violence and prevention center.
I am an ENFJ Myers Briggs Personality Type and my love language is quality time.
MY EDUCATION & TRAINING
B.S. in Journalism from Medill at Northwestern University
California Master Gardener Certification