User:Sstern221/sandbox

Jennifer Jewell
Jennifer Jewell (born 1965) is an American author and broadcast journalist focused on the importance of the intersections between horticulture and gardening, environmentalism, and culture. She currently has three published books through Timber Press, The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants , Under Western Skies: Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast , and most recently What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological and Cultural Significance of Seeds.

Early Life and Family:
Jennifer Jewell was born in 1965, the second daughter of Sheila Balding Jewell, a professional gardener and floral designer, and Samuel Rea Jewell, PhD Wildlife Biology, Colorado State University. Jewell learned how and why to garden and the spiritual philosophy of compost from her mother, and about the great outdoors, science, and the diversity of nature from her father.

Jewell attended highschool at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts and went on to receive her undergraduate degree in World Literature from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1993.

Career:
Jewell worked as an arts and literature editor and writer for Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia in Seattle Washington from 1996 to 2000. From 1999 to 2009, she was a regular garden-writer contributor to publications from the hyper local simple-living Phinney Ridge Review to the regional Colorado Homes & Lifestyles, national Natural Home, Old House Journal, House & Garden, Martha Stewart Living, and international Gardens Illustrated.

In 2007, Jewell and her family moved from Northern Colorado to interior Northern California and she took the opportunity to shift her work’s focus from glossy shelter-magazines and their often 2-dimensional, objectified depiction of gardens and gardeners to broadcast journalism on public radio, featuring the heart and voice of gardeners. From 2008 to 2015, Jewell was the creator and host of the locally-focused In a North State Garden a weekly radio and web-based program celebrating the art, craft and science of home-gardening in California's North State region as a co-production of North State Public Radio.

From 2010 to 2017 Jewell also worked as a curatorial assistant to the director and creator and curator of the native plant garden at Gateway Science Museum on the Campus of California State University, Chico in Chico California.

In 2016, Jewell became the creator and host of the globally focused weekly, 1 hour pubic radio program and podcast Cultivating Place, Conversations on Natural History & The Human Impulse to Garden, co-produced by North State Public Radio, and focusing on the culture of gardening around the world. Cultivating Place is syndicated on NPR affiliate radio stations across California and in Ohio and available as individual episodes to public radio stations on Public Radio Exchange (PRX).

The mission of Cultivating Place is to “elevate and expand the way we as a society think and talk about gardening, the empowerment of gardeners, and the possibility inherent in the intersection between places, environments, cultures, individuals, and the gardens that bring them together beautifully – for the better of all the lives on this generous planet.” The program explores what gardens, gardeners, and gardening mean in our changing world and airs every Thursday at 10 am Pacific on Northern State Public Radio, before rolling out to syndicating stations. Annually, Cultivating Place podcast is downloaded around the world more than 1 million times.

Writing:
Jewell is the author of several books on gardens, horticulture, and culture: The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, Under Western Skies: Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast (with photographer Caitlin Atkinson), and What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological and Cultural Significance of Seeds (Timber Press, 2023).

Honors, awards and assessment:
In 2017, Jewell and Cultivating Place won the Garden Writers of America (now GardenComm) Award for Best Overall Broadcast Media, and Best On-Air Talent. In  2018, she was awarded their Best On-Air Talent).

In 2021, The Earth in Her Hands was honored by the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries with their Award for Excellence in Biography, and Under Western Skies received a Golden Poppy winner for the Glenn Goldman award from the California Alliance of Independent Booksellers. The members of CALIBA present The Golden Poppy Book Awards to recognize the most distinguished books written by writers and artists who make California their home.

In 2023, the American Horticultural Society awarded Jewell a “Great American Gardener Award”- the B.Y. Morrison Award for outstanding “effective and inspirational” horticulture communication.

Charitable Activity:
Jewell is a regular supporter and/or member of mission-driven, horticultural nonprofits and endeavors  including The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, Sierra Seeds, Maidu Summit Consortium, California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project, Black Sanctuary Gardens, Honor the Earth, Soul Fire Farm, Namu Farm, Urban Farming Institute of Boston, The Garden Conservancy, American Horticultural Society, American Public Gardens Association, Pacific Horticulture Society, California Native Plant Society, and Garden Communicators International.

Personal Life:

Jewell lives in Northern California with her partner, plantsman John Whittlesey. She has two daughters who share Jewell’s love and passion for the environment and the places they cultivate.