Tabitha Alterman, Senior Associate Editor
Tabitha Alterman has maintained a lifelong interest in living lightly on the planet while soaking up all its glory, through both work and play. She revels in fresh air and sunshine, music with a soul, dancing from the hips, long bouts of travel, celebrating the seasons through cooking and — above all — good times with the good people she holds near and dear. She values wit and beauty, but neither above compassion. Her favorite words are bunk, sagacious and smarmy.
Alterman studied English at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., aka The Natural State, where she misses the pecan grove and Petit Jean Mountain the most. She has also lived under the grey skies and shimmering spires of Oxford, England; the massive magnolias and wraparound porches of her hometown of Memphis, Tenn.; on the side of a volcano on Hawaii’s Kona Coast; in a bungalow in hip Lawrence, Kan.; in the shadow of South Mountain in Phoenix, Ariz.; and in her friendly-family-filled neighborhood of Southwest Harlem in New York City. She is delighted to have given up driving altogether, and is pursuing graduate studies in sustainable food systems research. She owes her dedication to conscientious living to the fabulous example set by her parents, who tread lightly on a rural patch of the last remaining tallgrass prairie in the United States.
Since the age of 10, Alterman has been filling notebooks with sketches and plans for an eventual “Tabitopia,” where natural building methods and excellent homegrown food are key elements. Alterman has served as a civil society delegate to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, where her focus was on sustainable agriculture. She participates in an innovative local food policy council, Food Systems Network NYC, and in her local Slow Food chapter. She also volunteers for the food education department of Murray's Cheese in Greenwich Village, and for FoodChange, the local food bank that serves as her CSA (community supported agriculture) distribution site. For Mother Earth News, Alterman sheperds the stories being told about Real Food and Organic Gardening.
Learn more about our efforts to promote the good people doing good food work all over this country:
See what Tabitha Alterman has been up to lately:
2008: Alterman enjoys an organic 'Mother Earth
Brews Alt,' a scrumpdidlyuptious beer in the brews
alt style that she brewed with Davin Bartosch, a good
buddy of hers who makes beer at Rock Bottom Brewery
in Chicago.
2005: Alterman's display of heirloom veggies from
her editor's and her own organic gardens in Kansas
won Second Best Display at the annual heirloom
plant festival at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in
Mansfield, Mo.
2004: Alterman at her favorite mostly untouched,
still-wild place, which is a secret, and she plans to
keep it that way!
Alterman also enjoys a fun and challenging post at Natural Home magazine. She’s inspired by the home design principles of wabi sabi that she’s learned from Natural Home’s editor-in-chief, Robyn Griggs Lawrence, and is thrilled to be on board as the team’s technical editor. She is proud that her work contributes to well-researched, thoughtful content that is as free from greenwashing as possible.
