Media - Linda Cockburn

Living The Good Life – Revamped – Linda Cockburn & Trev Wittmer

Back in 2006 we wrote Living the Good Life – How One Family Changed Their World from Their Own Backyard. We spent six months on an experiment in sustainable living on a suburban Queensland block. We grew our own food, bartering with what we couldn’t, milked a goat called Possum, had chooks, bicycles for transport, rainwater and power from off the roof. We reduced our expenditure to close to $0 while losing weight, reducing our blood pressure and generally becoming healthier, wealthier and happier.

A family that plays together – stays together became the motto. So naturally we moved to Tasmania and designed and hand built a straw bale house from local and salvaged materials. We established a garden and got back to growing our own food, but after six years of working with local community organisations we scaled up and became market gardeners, growing food for our community and supporting others to do the same.

We morphed into Seed Freaks. Our goal was to create a living seed bank and encourage home gardeners to grow and save seeds of varieties not readily available in Australia. Greater diversity in open-pollinated varieties is important. Globally we’ve lost around 94% over the past 100 years. It quickly became bigger than our bodies could cope with. We’re too old for that caper, and we’ve handed it on to a younger generation to grow it further. You can spot us on ABC Gardening Australia.

The very core of our lives needs to be rooted in doing things that give them meaning and make the world a better place. Reciprocity – giving back at the same rate we are taking and Eudaimonia – a flourishing world, are the frameworks we try to live by. We fall often, but it’s a bike we keep getting back on.

Everything we do is geared towards supporting positive societal change, greater community resilience and a flourishing planet.

We write books with bite, books that matter. Books that leave the reader changed*

‘I read Living the Good Life in my transition from fashion-obsessed hairdresser to biophiliac and it helped me find my path. I’m ever grateful to Linda for sending this into the world.’
Paulette Whitney – Author of Broccoli & other Love Stories

_{*Except for Kaos Court, that’s just pure fun. The only thing you’ll change after reading it are your knickers.}

Writer for ABC Organic Gardener Magazine since 2004
Green Agenda – My Planet Saving Superpowers 2024
Freelance journalist since 1986
Shortlisted for the UK Fiction Factory Award – Eat My Shadow – 2022
Interview with Joel Rhineberger – Eat My Shadow – 2022
Shortlisted for Forty South Short Story Award – 2022
Shortlisted for Reed Fiction Award, judged by Keri Hulme – 1991
Living The Good Life – How One Family Changed Their World From Their Own Backyard – Hardie Grant 2006
Eat My Shadow – Together Press – 2022
Kaos Court – Together Press – 2023
The Quiet Revolution – Debt Free & Working Less, How Our Species Survives – Together Press – 2024
Living The Good Life – Revamped – Together Press – 2024