ABOUT

Helen and her partner, Peter, moved to Knoll Farm in 2001 and have spent the past quarter century farming and creating a community space for leaders in movements for social change to gather, restore and flourish.

Farming is more than a full time job and yet the pay is terrible, so Helen chose another endless profession that pays poorly to supplement her farming — writing books. To supplement both of those bad habits, she teaches writing at Middlebury College and various residencies, and she is Editor-at-Large for Milkweed Editions and the editor of many books. Previous roles as an editor include working at Chelsea Green, being the Editor-in-Chief of Countryman Press/W. W Norton for seven years and eight years at Orion Magazine.

One of her lifelong joys is sitting on the ground, by a river or in the mountains, alone with a good book. As you’ll see in The Salt Stones, books often become her muse and her guiding lights. The best books have the potential to make something mundane come alive on a mystical plane. As a writer and seeker of life’s simple but profound joys, to merge the mundane into the mystic might be her ultimate goal.