In this bonus edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite's Black book discussions, we bring you a conversation between Natalie Braszile, author of We Are Each Other's Harvest and Queen Sugar, which inspired the critically acclaimed show, and Stephen Lucke, founder and CEO of Gardopia Gardens.
About Natalie: Natalie is the author of the novel Queen Sugar, which is being adapted for a seventh television season by writer/director Ava DuVernay, and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey. Queen Sugar was named one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Best Books of 2014, was long-listed for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. In addition, her new non-fiction book, We Are Each Other's Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land & Legacy, was named an Amazon Editors Pick and a Wall Street Journal "Favorite Book of the Year." In We Are Each Other's Harvest, Natalie brings together essays, poems, conversations, portraits, and first-person narratives to tell the story of Black people's connection to the land from Emancipation to the present. Her other non-fiction work has appeared in National Geographic, The Bitter Southerner, O, The Oprah Magazine, and several anthologies. Natalie lives in San Francisco.
About Stephen: Stephen Lucke holds a Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry from the University of the Incarnate Word and a Masters of Arts in Nutrition from the University of the Incarnate Word. During his undergraduate years, he became enamored with health and wellness, first starting a student & employee wellness program and then a community garden on campus. It wasn't long before Stephen started Gardopia to address obesity and climate change a few years later.
Stephen is a native San Antonian who also enjoys spending time in civic engagement and physical fitness. He has manifested these other passions by becoming a certified strength and conditioning specialist in 2015 and running for Mayor of San Antonio in 2017. In addition, Stephen earned his Organic Farmer Certification in the Spring of 2019 and is currently a NASA Community College Aerospace Scholar. Stephen looks forward to continued growth with Gardopia in our 7th year of operations.