Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain, preparing for the Apocalypse. Raised on a 16-acre plot in the Angeles National Forest, very close to Claremont, Dowd learned to forage daily for edible plants. Knowledge of the outside world came to her only through a few small, chance encounters with the outside world--things like a hospital stay in Los Angeles, or a hidden Sears catalog. By the time she was 17, she made her escape, enrolling at Pitzer College (from which she graduated in 1990). Dowd's memoir, which has been covered in outlets as diverse as The Washington Post, Shondaland, and The Joe Rogan Experience, recounts her upbringing and the lessons she has learned about surviving in the wilderness, in more ways than one. Join Dowd, now a journalism professor, for an intimate evening as she explores the skill of "foraging," or finding what you need, wherever you are, and how you can learn adaptability, intuition, creativity, joy, and abundance from the earth. When you know how to look, there is more than enough.
Michelle Dowd is a contributor to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, TIME magazine, Alpinist, The LA Review of Books, LA Parent Mag, and other national publications. She was raised on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest where she learned to navigate by the stars and forage for edible plants. Her memoir, Forager: Field Notes on Surviving a Family Cult, showcases her life growing up on an isolated mountain in California as part of an apocalyptic cult, and how she found her way out of poverty and illness by drawing on the gifts of the wilderness.
