Debbie Millman’s Love Letter to a Garden

Love Letter to a Garden

Contributions by Roxane Gay

Debbie Millman—an award-winning writer, designer, and host of the podcast Design Matters—always thought of herself as a bad gardener. Nevertheless, she kept trying. Over the years she came to realize that no one is a bad gardener, we’re all just questing for a garden, a journey that develops over time, through space, and evolves along with our hearts. In Love Letter to a Garden, Debbie Millman shares her journey to make and grow a garden—and the plants she has collected along the way—a process that started with handed-down houseplants from beloved friends and a lone peony observed for many seasons on a city street until it one day disappeared. This led to Millman growing gardens in both New York City and Los Angeles. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, bestselling author Roxane Gay. Love Letter to a Garden is a little gem of a book—an inspiring, impulse-friendly story that can be read in one setting, then shared, experienced, pollinated, and perpetuated.

$20.00

$26.00 CAD

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a note from Debbie Millman
This book is a love story about my lifelong quest for a garden. It spans time and memory and is rooted in the garden I share today with Roxane. I wrote this with the hope that it can expand the idea of a "garden" — an idea that is for anyone who sees a flower or a plant and feels their heart open a little bit. I hope this book can be shared as a small token of love, with those you love.
a recipe from Roxane Gay
Roxane loves this salad dressing best on panzanella, a bright and summery tomato and bread salad.
1/2 cup of olive old
1/2 cups of white balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp honey
1 shallot, minced
1 clove minced garlic
salt + freshly cracked pepper to taste
Shake ingredients vigorously and pour liberally.

“A tender ode to the passage of time, to the quiet ways in which nature anneals and consecrates our human nature, and an exquisite testament to the personal as the supreme portal to the universal.”
Maria Popova, writer
“Wise, profound and beautiful. It will unlock your soul.”
Seth Godin, author of The Song of Significance
“I needed this passionate love letter—a gorgeous reminder to plant, tend, endure, wait, and discover, because only then will we gather our most nourishing dreams.”
Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, finalist for the National Book Award
“Gardening, like love and cooking, is a contract with hope. It doesn’t matter if you have a small garden or a large garden or no garden: we all need this delightful, beautiful book now more than ever. With wonderful recipes born from the combination of affection and flavor, Love Letter to a Garden is the story of what it means to plant the seeds of sustenance and watch them grow into nourishment not only for the body but the soul.”
Elissa Altman, author of Motherland
“This book is everything! After reading it, I just sat with my heart in my throat laughing and tearing up. I’ve read and loved Millman’s work for so long, but this may be my new favorite! Love Letter to a Garden is bold, beautiful, brilliant, and deeply personal. I have never read a book that at once makes me want to plunge my hands in the soil, hug my beloved, and cook a meal.”
Jacqueline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming, winner of the National Book Award
“Oh, what a book! Debbie Millman is a living love letter—to creativity, curiosity, and the importance of paying exquisitely careful attention. What a delight to see these pages bloom with beauty, life, and tenderness. You will find her wisdom here, you’ll see her artistry, but most importantly, you’ll encounter her singular heart, gloriously and abundantly on display.”
Mariska Hargitay & Peter Hermann, Actors & Activists
“While culture drags us toward the artificial, Millman returns us to real intelligence: nature’s rhythm of planting, patience, bloom. As I turned each beautiful page of Love Letter to a Garden, I felt my heart opening and my pulse slowing as I remembered that the rhythms of Millman’s garden are also the rhythms of humanity—of me. This book is a modern Gift from the Sea, reminding us that all the joy, wisdom, peace and magic we need is right here in forests, in neighborhoods, in backyards, in a single seed. As Millman awakens our awe for the miraculous planet, perhaps we’ll also find the drive to save it.”
Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed

Debbie Millman

About the Author

Debbie Millman has been named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, and “one of the most influential designers working today” by GDUSA. Millman is an illustrator, author, educator, and host of the podcast Design Matters. Broadcasting for 19 years, Design Matters is one of the first and longest running podcasts in the world. The show won a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in 2011, and Apple has named it one of their “All Time Favorites” three times. In 2023 the show won two Webby’s, three Communicator Awards, a Signal Award, three awards from The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, and earned an Ambie nomination.

Roxane Gay is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and the bestselling author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and New York Times bestselling Hunger: A Memoir of My Body.

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