“The New Farmer’s Almanac offers a much-needed pulse on the reflections and ruminations of land-based people and projects—our challenges, joys, sorrows, and hopes.”—Tao Orion, author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration
I directed thematic, editorial, and marketing strategy for “The New Farmer’s Almanac, Vol. VI: Adjustments & Accommodations”—a 400-page print book distributed by Chelsea Green Books.
As the Commissioning and Outreach Editor, I developed editorial and marketing plans and implemented the work to make them happen. I researched, invited, and built relationships with 120+ farmers, ecologists, and scientists to contribute writing or art. I acted as lead project manager of the six-person editorial team, oversaw the project budget, collaborated with the lead designer on layout, look, and feel, editorially stewarded our creative contributors from pitch to print, and conducted marketing outreach to stockists, distributors, and press.
As an editor, I wrote an introductory essay, interview scripts, all front and back matter, and image captions. I shared developmental edits in the first phase of select written pieces, offered mentorship and ideation support to writers in the pitch and submission phase, and supported final rounds of proofreading with the whole team.
Returns:
Through shared project stewardship and diligent marketing the book was brought to successful print and distribution by Chelsea Green Books, and can be found at boutiques, bookstores, and farms across North America. Vol. VI met year-over-year sales goals while boosting organizational and contributor credibility.
Through my research, relationship building, and editorial savvy, I increased inclusion of creative ecologists, environmental artists, scientists, and Indigenous leaders sharing visionary food systems, alongside regenerative farmers.
A selection of featured artworks:
(left) Suzanne Husky, Let Beavers Do the Job, Immediately after the fires, the government decides to collaborate with the beaver people
(right) Amory Abbott, Flood I
Writing and Sample Spreads
Nance Klehm interviewed by Renée Rhodes in Letting the Land Lead
“Everything’s about the soil. Even if I’m planting, I’m thinking about soil, about what I’m putting in with that seedling, or with that tree, or what I’m top dressing it with. I feel like I’m a student of soil in its intersection with water.“—Nance Klehm
Lake Erie Blooms by Christopher Winslow
“This dead lake image was tied to a loss of fish and aquatic insects. Through an algae lens, however, the lake was too alive.”—Christopher Winslow
Fetching Water by Nanci Amaka
I worked closely with Nanci, offering early developmental support and writing ideation. I collaboratively guided our team of copy editors, proofreaders, and designers to bring this article and others into final form.
“The United States Navy Red Hill Bulk Fuel storage facility is a few miles from my home and is in the middle of a drinking water pollution crisis. Their leaking fuel containers are located less than 100 feet above the aquifers that supply more than 75 percent of the freshwater used on the entire island of Oahu. I can’t help but think that every time humans have tamed forces of nature, the lasso used to wrangle it entangles us even further into a web of co-reliance that is ultimately uncontrollable.”—Nanci Amaka
Cafe Ohlone: A Love Song to Ohlone Culture by Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino
“Cafe Ohlone is a tangible cultural space for our living Ohlone community; a space where language classes are held, safe gatherings and meals for our elders occur, and where our community can see representation of our cultural identity outside of our homes.”—Vincent Medina & Luis Trevino
Sensing Silphium by Land Institute Staff
“We envision a future perennial oilseed crop broadly adapted to environments made even more dynamic due to climate change. I want to grow stories of relationship with silphium. We invite a small, decentralized network of civic scientists to conserve the diversity of locally-adapted silphium ecotypes, so their seed is available for research and restoration.“—Aubrey Streit Krug
Press Outreach & Social Media Marketing
Cover art: Current, 2019 by Melody Joy Overstreet & Vincent Waring.
Current depicts climate-heightened weather along the Pacific edge such as atmospheric rivers and flooding.
“The subtitle of the book is ‘Adjustments and Accommodations.’ “We’re thinking a lot about the kind of small, slow, and steady ways that each of us can have an impact,” says Renée Rhodes, Commissioning Editor. “A big part of this year’s theme had to do with recognizing the ways in which we do have agency, despite being in a moment of stacked crises.” “—book review in Modern Farmer
“Constant presencing, attention, and an aptitude for perpetual adjustment: these are very useful skills and ones that regenerative farmers and land workers practice every day. I see other creative land workers practicing their own systems of logic, ones that purge purity drives and perfect plans, that practice a watery ethos: slowing, settling, sinking into the land with the common good sense of love and responsibility that creates healthy systems and soil that cannot be so easily broken.“—Renée Rhodes, Introduction Essay
