Who We Are
Leslie Shalduha
Leslie Shalduha is an herbalist and writer, living most recently in rugged, beautiful NE Oregon. She has been working with herbs for 25+ years. It has been a journey, as many herbalists know, hard to pinpoint the time when she crossed over from interest in herbs to a calling as an herbalist. Her emphasis is on working with herbs and food in harmony to nourish, support and strengthen body, mind and soil, in simple, practical ways, learning how to incorporate them in daily life, in such a way that it becomes nurturing and comfortable.
Leslie has worked many different jobs in her life, beginning with the Navy out of high school, as a server & bartender, carpenter’s apprentice and office work in her early years. She finished a Bachelor’s Degree in Child & Family Studies and took a job at Lewis & Clark Montessori Charter School as a lunch lady where she designed and created a farm to school, organic, from scratch food service program. She has worked, managed and volunteered at a variety of non-profit positions as well. Both at an early childhood program in Ohio and the Montessori school, she designed and created a compost & garden program with the children & staff, managed and operated a farmer’s market in Damascus for 6 years, worked with farmers, vendors and customers to help them market their product and find each other. She worked closely with the Oregon Farm to School organization, as well. It is a passion of hers to connect folks to sources that can help them nourish and support themselves.
Though Leslie is mostly self-taught, she studied at Vital Ways School for Holistic Herbalism & Clinical Nutrition in Portland, completing 2 years of their Foundation Holistic Herbalist course and has had many teachers along the way.
Leslie has lived and traveled all over the United States (in Germany for a couple of years!) due to growing up with an Army father then joining the Navy herself.
In her spare time, she finds herself in the kitchen – working with food and herbs is her truest passion or on the open road, seeking places and plants to fill her soul.
Emma Williams
Emma Williams works as Creative Media Manager with Sassy Llama Apothecary and as Editor for Voicemail Poems, an online poetry journal. She is an artist, poet and writer, finding inspiration in the natural world and through travel. Over the last three years she has split her time between rural NE Oregon and Norway, where she studied creative media and writing.
Emma has held a variety of interesting jobs. At Fishtrap, a creative writing nonprofit, she was tasked with finding a solution to increasing the involvement of younger audiences in the creative writing world. Her recently published article, “Moonglass and The Timeless Existence of Art,” in New York City magazine UP, is an interview piece written about a local glass blowing artist in NE Oregon.