Deirdre Helfferich

Deirdre Helfferich is a lifelong Alaskan with a fondness for cats, languages, and gardens. With the exception of a year in Denmark, a year in Paris, and six years in Seattle, she has lived most of her 50-odd years in the Interior, where she was born. She has worked at Mushing Magazine, the UA Press, and as managing editor for the Alaska Agricultural & Forestry Experiment Station. She founded and operated an irreverent monthly news magazine, The Ester Republic, for 14 years, also founding a nonprofit membership library, the John Trigg Ester Library, now 17 years old. As part of her work with AFES at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, she was a founding member of the Alaska Food Policy Council, and became interested in agrobiodiversity, local food and community supported agriculture, food sovereignty and justice issues, and seed saving. (She never liked commercial tomatoes anyway.)