Author(s): Helen Lehndorf

Nature Writing | Aotearoa New Zealand Non-Fiction

A memoir about belonging and motherhood, told through the author's lifelong passion for wild food. When Helen Lehndorf moves to the city after a childhood living off the land in rural Taranaki, she can't help but feel different from her peers and professors - peculiar, poor. She finds solace in long walks foraging weeds and plants along the river, but something inside her still longs for home. Chasing a feeling of ancestral belonging, she travels to England with her new husband. There they learn about nature as the commons, something shared between all who encounter it - a source of delight, food, medicine, and connection with something greater than the forest in which it's found. An unexpected pregnancy in Aotearoa changes everything. Times are tight and motherhood takes over Helen's identity. When her son is diagnosed with autism, foraging becomes a space for selfhood and calm in a chaotic world. Interweaving memoir through descriptions of the plants Helen has foraged, and the practices and recipes she has honed, A Forager's Life tells an intimate story about belonging, marriage and motherhood. Helen finds in nature a promise that, with the right frame of mind, much can be made of the world around us.

Author Biography: Helen Lehndorf is a life-long forager and Taranaki writer who lives in the Manawatu. She co-founded the Manawatau Urban Foraging group. Her first book, The Comforter, was published by Seraph Press in 2012, and her second book, Write to the Centre, a nonfiction book about the process of keeping a journal, was published by Haunui Press in 2016. Her work has also appeared in anthologies and journals such as Sport, Landfall and JAAM.