For a listing of press about us, please see the Blips tab.
Author Biography:
Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen grow food, keep chickens, brew, bike, bake, and plot revolution from their 1/12-acre farm in the heart of Los Angeles. They are the keepers of the popular DIY blog, Root Simple, and the authors of The Urban Homestead, which the New York Times calls “…the contemporary bible on the subject.” Their new book, Making It, a project book for the DIY lifestyle, will be released by Rodale on April 26th, 2011
In addition to their writing and blogging, Kelly and Erik teach and speak on the topics of self-reliance, urban gardening and sustainability.
- Contact us: rootsimple@gmail.com
- Author photo link: screen resolution, print resolution
- Link to images which may be used to illustrate articles:
- Coyne is pronounced "coin." Knutzen is pronounced "KUH-newtsen."
- Literary agent: Byrd Leavell, Waxman Literary Agency
Making It
Coyne, Kelly and Knutzen, Erik, Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books, 2011.
ISBN-13: 978-1605294629
Cover image link:
Publisher contact: Rodale Books, Olivia Baniuszewicz at olivia.b@rodale.com, (212-573-0238)
Making It blurb:
If you have ever wondered how to grow vegetables in an apartment, build a chicken coop, homebrew beer, or make your own soap from scratch—this book is for you. The essential guide to becoming a producer instead of a consumer, Making It is full of simple, ingenious projects for your home, your garden, and even your fire escape.
All Change Begins at Home: Transform Your Life from the Ground Up
Just a few years ago, the idea of keeping a house sounded quaint, like something out of a 1950s sitcom, complete with an apron and a newfangled washing machine. But as a new generation of canners, composters, homebrewers, and knitters all over the country can attest, frugal, do-it-yourself living is back in fashion. In Making It, the ultimate guidebook for living a homemade life, Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen take back home ec and restore it to its original, noble form, in which the household is a self-sustaining engine of production at the center of your life. Making It provides all of the tools you need for this radical shift in home economics. With projects ranging from the simple to the ambitious and easy, step-by-step instructions, you’ll build all the skills you need to do everything from making your own laundry soap to becoming a beekeeper in your backyard.
The projects are divided into five categories, based on the amount of time they take: day to day, weekly, monthly, season to season, and big projects you’ll only need to do once. You can start with an oil lamp that will just take a couple of minutes, and before you know it, you’ll be making vinegar, setting up grow lights, and keeping a worm composter under the sink. No matter how skilled (or unskilled) you might be, the activities in this book are fun, inexpensive, and eminently do-able. Making It brings a sense of adventure to the most ordinary activities around the house and garden, reshaping domestic chores into part of a more creative, sensible, and sustainable way of life.
The Urban Homestead
Coyne, Kelly and Knutzen, Erik, The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City. Port Townsend, WA: Process Media, 2008. Revised and expanded edition, 2010.ISBN-13: 978-1934170014
Cover image link:
Publisher contact: Process Media, Adam Parfrey: adam@processmediainc.com
The Urban Homestead blurb:
The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a fast-growing new movement: urbanites are becoming gardeners and farmers. Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities.
If you would like to harvest your own vegetables, raise city chickens, or convert to solar energy, this practical, hands-on book is full of step-by-step projects that will get you started homesteading immediately, whether you live in an apartment or a house. It is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.
Projects include:
If you would like to harvest your own vegetables, raise city chickens, or convert to solar energy, this practical, hands-on book is full of step-by-step projects that will get you started homesteading immediately, whether you live in an apartment or a house. It is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.
Projects include:
- How to grow food on a patio or balcony
- How to clean your house without toxins
- How to preserve food
- How to cook with solar energy
- How to divert your grey water to your garden
- How to choose the best homestead for you
