Lorene Edwards Forkner is a freelance writer and award-winning garden designer. The co-author of Hortus Miscellaneous and Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest, she lives in Seattle.
Carla Emery lived on a farm in Idaho for more than thirty years as a wife, mother of seven, home-schooler, goat-keeper, garden-grower, writer, and country-living instructor. She wrote and self-published the first editions of The Encyclopedia of Country Living during the early 1970s and also ran her "School of Country Living." Carla sold nearly 90, 000 copies of her self-published editions, traveling the country to promote it and appearing on such shows as The Mike Douglas Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Phil Donahue Show, and Good Morning America, where she demonstrated country-living skills such as goat-milking, bread-making, and butter-churning. Carla cultivated a large and loyal following across the country. She passed away in 2005.