Diana Leafe Christian

Diana Leafe Christian is an author, former editor of Communities magazine, and a national speaker and workshop presenter on starting new ecovillages and community and sustainability. She lives in an off-grid homestead at Earthaven Ecovillage in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, USA.^[1][2][3]

Biography

In the early 1990s Christian published a newsletter, Growing Community, about starting new communities. In 1993 she became editor of Communities magazine, a quarterly publication of the nonprofit Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), about intentional communities and organized neighborhoods in North America. Her first book on communities (see below) was published in 2003 and her second in 2007. In October 2007, she stepped down from her post at Communities Magazine to found the bimonthly Ecovillages newsletter, a project of Cooperative Resources & Services Project.

Previous writing experinece included writing articles for New Age magazine, Yoga Journal, and East West Journal. She has also hosted radio interview programs in Hawaii and in northern California in the 1970s and 80s.

At Earthaven Ecovillage, Christian works on the sustainable homesite she shares with her mother and other Earthaven residents. She participates in Earthaven's consensus governance process, and serves on its strategic planning and membership committees. Christian also gives day-long tours of Earthaven.

Published works

Christian is the author of two books designed to help people who want to join or start their own ecovillages or intentional communities. In Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, she uses success stories, cautionary tales, and step-by-step advice to cover typical time-frames and costs; the role of founders; getting started as a group; vision documents; power, governance, and decision-making; legal structures; finding and financing land; zoning issues; sustainable site plans; selecting new members; and good process and communication skills for dealing well with conflict.

In Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community, she covers researching, visiting, evaluating, and joining communities.

Public speaking

Christian speaks, leads workshops, and shows slide presentations on ecovillages in the United States and Canada, including Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Tennessee, Los Angeles Eco-Village, Lost Valley Educational Center in Oregon, O.U.R. Ecovillage in British Columbia, and Easton Mountain Center in New York. She has led workshops at the North American Cohousing Conference, Twin Oaks Communities Conference, and FIC's Art of Community gathering. Her articles on ecovillages and intentional communities have appeared in publications ranging from Mother Earth News to Canada's This Magazine. She has been quoted in The New York Times,^[4] Harper's magazine,^[5] and AARP Magazine, and interviewed by Vision magazine, New Dimensions Radio, NPR, and the BBC.

Books

• 2003, Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, New Society Publishers; New Ed edition , ISBN 0865714711
• 2006, Vivre autrement: écovillages, communautés et cohabitats, Les éditions Écosociété, ISBN 2-923165-24-1, Préface de Jacques Languirand
• 2007, Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community , New Society Publishers, ISBN 0865715785

References

1. ^ "Living green before their time". Toronto Star. 20 May 2007. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/215859. Retrieved 17 March 2010. 
2. ^ JACOBS, ANDREW (11 June 2006). "IDEAS & TRENDS; Extreme Makeover, Commune Edition". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E7D91231F932A25755C0A9609C8B63. Retrieved 17 March 2010. 
3. ^ Kelly, Joe (19 September 2007). "From homeless to village people?". Vue Weekly. http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=6988. Retrieved 17 March 2010. 
4. ^ JACOBS, ANDREW (11 June 2006). "IDEAS & TRENDS; Extreme Makeover, Commune Edition". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E7D91231F932A25755C0A9609C8B63. Retrieved 27 DecemberMarch 2010. 
5. ^ Urstadt, Bryant (August 2006). "Imagine there's no oil: Scenes from a liberal apocalypse". Harper's Magazine. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/08/0081156. Retrieved 27 Dec 2010. 

External links

• personal website
• Christian's biography
• Intentional Community Wiki page on Diana

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