Dina Falconi is a clinical herbalist with a strong focus on food activism and nutritional healing. She has been teaching classes about the use of herbs for food, medicine, and pleasure, including wild-food foraging and cooking, for more than twenty years. She is a founding member of the Northeast Herbal Association, a chapter leader of the Weston A. Price Foundation and on the board of Slow Food-Hudson Valley. An avid gardener and wildcrafter, Dina is passionate about ecological agriculture and has completed the Permaculture Design Certificate Course. She is the author of Earthly Bodies & Heavenly Hair: Natural and Healthy Personal Care for Everybody (Ceres Press, 1998)

Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook 

Wins Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (Ippy Awards)!

(May 7, 2014 – Traverse City, MI) - After a long, cold winter, the announcement of the 18th annual Independent Publisher Book Awards has brought a spring-like gust of excellence to the publishing world.

Launched in 1996 and conducted each year to honor the year's best independently published books, the "IPPY" Awards recognize merit in a broad range of subjects and reward authors and publishers who "take chances and break new ground." Independent publishers, along with independent booksellers, have long held an important role in the world of books, offering an alternative to "the big five" conglomerated media publishers. Thanks to small presses, university presses, and self-publishing services that give experimental and entrepreneurial authors a platform, the IPPY universe is rapidly expanding -- and that gives adventurous reader an abundance of new choices. 

This year’s Cookbook category winners also demonstrate a connection to the land. In Cookbook/Nutrition gold medalist, Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook, author Dina Falconi describes the art of foraging: "To forage means to dance with the land. It reconnects us to the exhilarating yet humble place within the web of life."

Wendy Hollender is a botanical artist, author, and instructor. Hollender’s illustrations have been published in The New York Times, “O,” The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple and The Observer (UK). Her work was included in the 13th International Exhibition at Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, and in exhibitions at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and the Smithsonian National Museum for Natural History. She is the author of Botanical Drawing in Color: A Basic Guide To Mastering Realistic Form And Naturalistic Color, and Botanical  Drawing, A Beginner's Guide.

You can view more of Wendy’s work on her website: www.drawingincolor.com