Julia Skinner

Julia is incredibly passionate about food as a force for healing and connection, and this passion for building community is central to her other work.

She is a food historian, who sees the food she makes and the stories she tells as a way to connect with the past and with the people around her.

In 2018, she founded Root (@rootkitchens), a food history and fermentation organization that makes food history accessible through education, events, and building personal and community connections to the food we eat.

She is also a professional fermenter, and works with restaurants to reduce food waste and reinvision seasonal eating, while also teaching classes and leading events for home cooks.

She received her doctorate in Library and Information Science from Florida State University, and while she is not a full time librarian any longer, she believes libraries are critically important institutions, and continues to be involved with libraries through a variety of service activities and collaborations, and teaching the next generation of librarians at several universities.

She has had all sorts of travel and work adventures (including an almost 6 year stint as a city bus driver) that continue to inform her work and imbue her world with a sense of wonder. When at her home in Atlanta, she can often be found playing in nature, creating new art (or even writing!), exploring the city, and spending time with the people and animals she loves.