Penguin Speakers Bureau

Biography

Novella Carpenter grew up in rural Idaho and Washington State. She studied biology and English at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she had many odd jobs including assassin bug–handler and 16mm projectionist. After moving to California, she attended UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Novella’s writing has appeared in Salon.com, Saveur.com, SFGate.com (the San Francisco Chronicle’s website), and Mother Jones. Her adventures in urban agriculture began with honeybees and a few chickens, then some turkeys, until she created an urban homestead called Ghost Town Farm near downtown Oakland, where she and her boyfriend, Bill, live today.

Speaking Topics

• Urban Farming: One Woman’s Story

  Novella Carpenter will present a slideshow about her urban farm, which has featured, over the years, turkeys, bees, rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, and goats. Her misadventures in squat farming in the middle of downtown Oakland inspired The New York Times to call her book “easily the funniest, weirdest, most perversely provocative gardening book I’ve ever read. I couldn’t put it down.” In addition to reading from her book and giving a PowerPoint presentation about the evolution of her farm and her lessons learned, Novella will discuss the history of urban farming in America, the state of the movement today, and what we can learn from urban farmers around the world.

• Food and Community

  Novella Carpenter is the antidote to high-maintenance foodies. She started urban farming partially because eating organic local food can be prohibitively expensive and is often seen as an elitist pursuit. In Farm City, she writes, “as a poor scrounger with three low-paying jobs and no health insurance, I couldn’t afford the good stuff. Since I liked eating quality meat and have always had more skill than money, I decided to take matters into my own hands.” And so she did, raising turkeys, ducks, rabbits, and even pigs, using thrifty (and sometimes gross) techniques in order to make her pursuit sustainable. She wound up getting an education in gourmet food production along the way, learning how to make duck confit, pancetta, lardo, and roasted heritage turkey. As she will describe in her talk, she also got an education in how hungry her community was, and how she went about to mend that situation. Even the desperately poor people in her area rallied around the farm and helped create an oasis in a blighted neighborhood. Good food, as food justice advocates say, is for everyone. Novella will also talk about how the good food movement is shaping up in the U.S. and is reaching more people than ever before.

Videos

Novella Carpenter at Berkeley Arts & Letters

More About This Speaker

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  "2 Food Books Worth Reading" – The Atlantic

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  "Urban farming essentials: Authors of a new, definitive guide tell all" – Grist

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  The Essential Urban Farmer Review – San Francisco Chronicle

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  "Oakland Urban Farming Prompts Plan to Redo Rules" – San Francisco Chronicle

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  "Composted Manure Is the Gardener's Best Friend" – San Francisco Chronicle

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  "The New Trend in Urban Farming: Goats" – NPR's Marketplace

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  "Ethical eating hits the page with 6 new books" – San Francisco Chronicle

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  "Book Review: Novella Carpenter's Farm City" – The Washington Times

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  "New Paperbacks About Living Off the Land" – The Washington Post

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  "Living Off the Land, Surrounded by Asphalt" – New York Times Book Review

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  Q&A with Novella Carpenter – The Boston Globe

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  "The New Homesteaders: Off-the-Grid and Self-Reliant" – Popular Mechanics

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  "Urban Farmer Enthralls Albany Listeners With Tales of Living Farm to Table" – Albany Patch

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  "Interview: Novella Carpenter, Author of Farm City" – SMITH

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  "Urban Farmer: No Illusions, Lots of Work" – OregonLive.com

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  "The Retrovore's Dilemma" – Mother Jones

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  "The New American Homesteaders" – Food & Wine

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  "A Tale of Two Squatters" – SFGate.com

Buy Now

Farm City

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  Visit Novella's Blog