Helen Lehndorf

Helen Lehndorf is a New Zealand writer, teacher, poet, and urban forager whose work links place, family, and practical ecological knowledge. A Forager’s Life, published by HarperCollins in 2023, is a memoir about belonging and motherhood structured through wild food, recipes, foraging principles, and everyday practices. It moves from her childhood in rural Taranaki through years in England and family life in the Manawatū, showing how plants and seasonal gathering became sources of continuity and selfhood. Lehndorf co-founded the Manawatū Urban Foraging group and has taught both creative writing and food-related skills. Her earlier books occupy different forms: The Comforter is a poetry collection published by Seraph Press, while Write to the Centre is a Haunui Press nonfiction book about keeping a journal. A Forager’s Life brings these strands together through memoir, combining close observation, lived experience, and useful knowledge without treating foraging as separate from community or care.