Editor’s note: This is the thirty-second entry in a series on how historians—especially contingent historians and those employed outside of tenure-track academia—do the work of history. If you know of someone we should interview, or would like to be interviewed yourself, send an email with the subject line HOW I DO HISTORY to pitches@contingentmag.org.
Photo by Dan Almasy.
Julia Skinner is a food writer, educator, business owner, and multidisciplinary PhD. Here’s how she does history.
What is your current position and where are you working?
I am self-employed and an independent scholar. I worked in libraries and museums and as faculty while still in academia, and left to pursue my work as a writer and my businesses independently. As part of that work, I am a food historian and author, I run a culinary business, and help other writers as a writing coach.
Logo for Root, drawn by Julia Skinner.
You are a business owner. Please tell us about the two businesses you created and run.
I began Root, a fermentation and food history education and consulting organization, in 2018. I started out primarily offering a paid newsletter-based membership and classes, and later expanded to doing consulting for research and creative projects.
More recently, in 2023, I founded Roots and Branches, my writing coaching firm focused on building a sustainable, pleasurable writing practice. I saw a deep need for writers to tap into the joy of writing as well as into momentum and productivity so they could access their creative power and make their most important work. Through it, I offer group programs, some self-paced classes, and limited private coaching spots.
Next month, on November 11, I’ll be launching the Culinary Curiosity School, which offers self-paced and group virtual culinary programs focused on cultivating curiosity and excitement as well as expanding skills and knowledge. When it launches, it will include everything from The Fermentative Creation Lab, which helps people build a fermentation practice rooted in community, to the Food Writing Playground to help writers weave some fun and joy back into their work, and a class on preserving family recipes and cookbooks (with a new section on disaster mitigation). Among many other things. For anyone who is on Instagram, they can also follow along at @culinary.curiosity.school, or they can get updates in my newsletter.
What’s a typical work day or work week look like for you?
Whew, I have a lot of variety in my work weeks, but what is typical for me is the routine I have set to work around all that uncertainty. My writing time happens before email is checked, for example, every weekday, and most of the time (except right now, when I’m on a book deadline), I take weekends off.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, I meet with private writing clients and try to concentrate on other meetings on these days, too, when I can. I try to keep Wednesday as a deep work day just for writing: No meetings, no distractions. Thursday and Friday are a bit more up in the air depending on the week. All of this has to be pretty flexible around travel, various freelance projects, book promotion and events, and everything else, but the thing that does not change is that I have a meditation and generative writing session each morning before I do any of it.
Have you always been interested in history?
Yes! I loved history when I was younger, but never imagined I would have a chance to study it. I was always told it would be too impractical. I didn’t really have a specific interest when I was young, though I always especially liked the Middle Ages, but moved to more modern history as time went on. I remember seeing the University of Iowa Center for the Book when I started there during undergrad, and thinking “that’s amazing, I wish I could do something like that.” And I did, and here I am.
Doing a fermentation demonstration at the Morningside Farmers’ Market. The shirt says “please pass the bacteria,” screen printed by Terry King.
Tell us about your undergraduate and graduate experiences. Where did you complete your undergraduate and graduate studies?
I started undergrad at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where I went for a year studying art and psychology, after moving from Colorado where I grew up. I was torn between Drake and Pratt, but Drake offered me a better scholarship package. I transferred over to University of Iowa for my sophomore year, taking classes there and at Kirkwood Community College. I got my BA in Psychology in 2007, and planned to go on to a PhD in the psychology of loss and trauma, but life had other plans. It all worked out, because I am able to serve people in other ways with the work I do now, and engage with my love of the past.
My MA is in Library Science, along with a graduate certificate from Iowa’s Center for the Book, followed by a PhD in Library Science from Florida State University.1 In my MA, I wrote a thesis on censorship in Iowa libraries during World War I, and my Center for the Book final project was on the 1615 cookery and household manual, The English Housewife.
Your PhD is in Library Science. Tell us about the field. What was your dissertation about?
I have always been really interested in change: How we engage with it and understand it, and how we enact it, and this interest guided me towards my dissertation topic. I was doing other research too (including in social media use, which also dealt with change in a different way), and was not sure where to focus. I was pulled aside by historian Wayne Weigand, who encouraged me to focus my attention towards the 135th Street branch of NYPL. My dissertation focused on one librarian, Ernestine Rose, and the many changes the library went through (and spearheaded) during the ~1920s-1940s. I lived part time in New York City during my dissertation, couch surfing with friends at night while spending my days in various libraries and archives around the city.
I focused on the history of the library and its role in Harlem neighborhood life and the Harlem Renaissance, but I also worked on theory testing and theory development. My colleagues and I developed a collaborative theoretical codebook for Information Worlds across our three dissertations. Dissertations are (as many people reading this will be well aware) typically a very solo, isolated activity. It was really rewarding and I would say an uncommon doctoral experience to include a collaborative research component in my historical work particularly a collaborative component with non-historical projects.
The cover to Julia’s 2022 book, Our Fermented Lives.
Tell us about your award-winning book, Our Fermented Lives.
Our Fermented Lives discusses the global history of fermentation, from the Neolithic (and briefly, before) all the way to the present day. It is organized thematically, rather than geographically, because many of the ways we work with fermentation (for preservation or health, for example), can be seen across many global cultures. It won a Nautilus Silver medal, and was a finalist for Georgia Author of the Year and for the International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Awards.
The book builds on my food historical research, which started out with Early Modern English cookbook history, and on to afternoon tea. I’ve also done research on Appalachian food history, but nowadays, my research (like me) is rooted more in our cross-cultural experiences with different culinary subjects than in one specific geographic area. I decided to write Our Fermented Lives because fermentation is a practice found in every culture around the world, and has been for thousands of years. But there wasn’t a book that tried to tackle the reasons why we ferment (in the past and now) and what those global histories have in common. It’s organized thematically for this reason (preservation, nutrition, etc.)
Are you currently working on a research project or new book project?
I always have my hands in a lot of different pots, and right now is no different. My next book, The Essential Preserving Handbook, got handed off to my editor on October 1st, and while it is a practical food preserving manual, because I am writing it there is a lot of history in there too. On October 15th, my next book, The Fermentation Oracle, comes out. It weaves together some of the ways I engage with historical culinary practices in a magical way.
By the end of the year, the Culinary Curiosity School will be open. The classes draw on a lot of different professional and personal interests, from connecting to place through fermentation to a class called “Finding Your Food Story,” which is part “how to” for conducting food history research and part reflection and meditations on the role food plays in each participant’s life (and how they want to describe and explore that further).
My writing coaching work continues to grow, and I am looking ahead to what books and other projects (like leading multi-day fermentation and art residencies, one of which I am leading at the Hambidge Center next year) lie ahead. I’m still in the planning stages for these, but essentially want to incorporate hands-on practical activities in the kitchen with foraging and exploring our relationship to place. Because I always give my clients journaling prompts in my writing programs, I love to include journaling prompts that folks can use and reflect on during the retreats. In the Hambidge retreat, I also plan to have a zine making workshop, where we all make a page in a collaborative zine to explore our individual and collective relationships to fermentation and place.
Doing a book talk at Bookmarks in Winston Salem, NC.
You also work as a writing coach. Tell us about the coaching and writing workshops you offer. Where can we find more information about them?
I have been a writing coach since 2019, when I started working with Scholars and Writers (who I still love working with). As my own coaching style has developed, I wanted to branch out to found my own practice which is what Roots + Branches became.
I still work with many academics and always will. I am very aware of the specific writing hurdles we encounter, and the exact obstacles that are thrown in our paths around self-worth and productivity. I want to help my fellow writers fall back in love with their work while also making progress on it, and to do that, I have been leaning deep into helping writers weave pleasure into their work, and celebrate their work and set goals in a way that gives each writer permission to witness their own progress.
Many writers tend to focus on what is not working and what we have not done, rather than what we can, and that separates us from the reason we started writing in the first place, while also slowing us down and increasing our fear of sharing our work. I think about creativity as an ecosystem, and use that approach in 1:1 programs and in group programs.
My next group programs begin in January, and I take 1:1 clients on a rolling basis as space opens up. Both include meetings and support between sessions, and resource libraries I built to help clients build their writing practice at their own pace.
If people want to learn more, I recommend looking at my current program list and to contact me if they have questions.
What is the best advice you have received or tell people about writing?
For me, it was not specifically about writing but was from one of my business coaches (Ana Kinkela), who taught me that actually enjoying my work was not optional. My pleasure and peace with my work are not just nice things to experience in the future, but are central to me actually being able to do what I want to do in the first place. As an academic, this was absolutely not how I was trained.
But my world has opened up (and my mental health has improved, dramatically) since I started putting this into practice as well as practicing non-judgment and it shapes my approach to helping other writers.
You are a food historian. Tell us how you got into the field. Also, what are some resources (books or articles) that have informed your research? Who are the scholars (historians or non) that have inspired you and your work?
I began studying book history and library history, and on a special collections visit during my MA program I encountered Gervase Markam’s The English Housewife (1615). I was so fascinated by this book. It is multiple books bound together (in this copy, I think three of his works in one binding), and recipes alongside household guidance we do not see in cookbooks today. Like medical advice, for example. Medical care wasn’t always accessible, and so a housewife or household staff would need to know how to do things like make basic remedies (teas, poultices, etc.) and do things like dress wounds or even perform minor surgery. I was hooked, and started researching it. While I did not do much food history work during my PhD, it was always an interest, and I returned to it after my doctorate.
I still write about food history and book history when I can. I am currently working for a series on wayfinding and cookbook history for Mold Magazine (here’s the first one).
In the history of libraries, Wayne Wiegand, Melanie Kimball, Nicole Cooke, and Emily Knox (among many, many many others) have informed my work. In the world of food history, Ken Albala was one of my first mentors and continues to inform my work, and in my current work I’m looking a lot at the work of people whose work sits between a few different fields and perspectives (like Sandor Katz and David Zilber), and I’m forever inspired by book historians: Kathleen Kamerick, while not strictly a book historian, is a Medievalist whose classes always sparked my imagination and encouraged me to keep digging (and is where I first encountered Markham’s book). It would be impossible to list all the people whose work has informed mine, but these are a few.
With jars of sauerkraut and cat Gir (RIP), circa 2011.
Besides your work as a writer and business owner, you also have worked in museums. Please tell us about your time as a museum curator. Did you also work as a museum archivist?
I worked as a rare books curator at a museum for several years before leaving academia. My background in rare books also includes archives, and I have worked in special collections in a variety of ways including creating exhibits and leading educational programs, processing archival collections (lots on the Quakers of Southeastern Iowa), acquisitions, and various other activities including cataloging (not my favorite!) and teaching instructional programs in college courses. I also, briefly, was able to bring rare books to community members normally excluded from accessing these resources (like low-income seniors and incarcerated scholars). Once upon a time, I had a blog (which I don’t update any more but is still up) where I talk about this a bit more, but essentially I reached out to community programs doing things I liked and asked how I could work with them to get more people in the room with books they otherwise might not have access to.
Julia with one of her favorite jars. Photo by Dan Almasy.
You split your time between two very different cities: Atlanta, Georgia and Cork, Ireland. Please tell us about life in both places.
I have lived in Atlanta since 2015, and continue to live here most of the time although eventually, I’ll be in Ireland more. Life in Atlanta is nice because there are lots of amenities here though like many people I wish it were more walkable. I like being here because I can get to the mountains to get away when I want to and I steward thirteen acres in rural north Georgia that I love to take walks on and camp. Here, I work from home rather than coffee shops, and do things with friends a few times a week or so.
In Cork, my husband, who is Irish, and I live in a semi-detached home. I am able to walk to the city center, which I appreciate since I do not have a car there. We go to the coast and to West Cork and various other places we love when I’m there and we want a little break. We eventually want to buy land and a farmhouse in West Cork, and do a bit of rewilding and host residencies and workshops. Cian, my husband, works as a chef, so I work from home in my home office and he goes to work in the kitchen, then we spend evenings together or with friends. I am still working out the logistics of moving over more full-time, but being married makes it a bit easier. We got married in Denmark this May.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about what historians do and how they work?
I think there is a misconception of passivity that I find in people’s misconceptions of librarians, too. By that I mean the number of times I have been told “it must be nice to sit around and read books all day.” I have always found that frustrating because it implies passive consumption of information without active reflection, creation, or synthesis. And it overlooks the many ways our work is very active. In writing, in educating, and in the ways we shape history every day by sharing it with others.
Julia admires one of her favorite jars. Photo by Dan Almasy.
If money, time, and distance were not issues, what’s a dream project you’d love to tackle? Or what’s a class you have always wanted to teach, but just haven’t had the opportunity to?
I am incredibly fortunate that I have already done a lot of these dream things. I have traveled to teach and do research, I live between two countries, and I am now starting to think about what is next now that I am being asked to dream bigger.
I want to lead residencies at my home like Sandor Katz (author and fermentation revivalist who helped bring fermentation back into popularity in the U.S.) does. A residency with him was life changing not only for the educational components but for the container he creates for the work everyone does together. I want to offer residencies in rural Ireland and somewhere in the U.S. South.
Recently, writer and activist Adrienne Maree Brown co-led a writing residency in Ireland that really inspired me: part generative writing space, part reimagining how we write. I do a similar thing on a small scale with Writing Playground now. Combining that with culinary creativity and art and a bit of magic in a collective multi-day space would be a dream.
I am starting to build out residencies and collaborative spaces (the next one is called Creative Revolution with Julia Albain, which opens in late September), so it will only be a matter of time, I hope!
Going farther afield, when I think about my legacy that I want to leave behind, I want people to remember my research of course, but I also want to continue doing work that connects them to the everyday magic behind what I study: The magic we choose to make each day as we cook and share. If we think of magic as directed intention, there is a lot to dive into there. And, I want to help people see themselves as a bridge between the past and the future, and recognize their role in helping to record and carry forward stories and traditions across that bridge. My books are part of that, residencies are a part of that, as is the Culinary Curiosity School, but I think there are some really big things with my writing coaching and my other work that haven’t yet fully formed. I see glimmers of what’s to come in my writing coaching groups, like Bloom, so I’m excited to see where it goes.
Photos from a fermentation demonstration. Photo by Julia Skinner.
If you were not a scholar, what other kind of work do you think you’d be doing?
Exactly what I am! I am so grateful for my experience in academia, which taught me to think critically, practice effective pedagogy, and how to dive deep into inquiry of a specific topic. I also am grateful I continue to conduct scholarly work, and to have expanded out to work in other areas, too. It does require a lot of inventiveness and flexibility, and sometimes I still find myself looking at jobs working for other folks because in some ways it would be easier, and while I may still take on work elsewhere again, I believe in my work enough that I will never stop doing what I do. I am very blessed to be able to write what I love, help other writers, and educate the community.
Photo by Dan Almasy.