Melinda Stone is the creator of How-to-Homestead. Throughout the years of directing how-to-homestead and the many projects that emanated from HTH, her focus was on place and community. Homesteading for Melinda has always been about recognizing the resources of a place and utilizing those resources for good.
Before HTH, Melinda was a filmmaker and one of the main instigators with the Barbie Liberation Organization and the Center for Land Use Interpretation, During this time in the late 1990s she was also responsible for the recognition of amateur film clubs within the film cannon. One of the filmmakers she befriended during the writing of her dissertation, Sid Laverents, thanks to her advocacy, had his film Multiple Sidosis named to the National Film Registry in 2000.
She was an artist in residence at the University of San Francisco from 1999 – 2026, where she started a film program, a community garden and urban agriculture program. All going strong.
Melinda is embarking on a new project, the church of living and dying, dedicated to honoring our choice to live and die naturally, honoring the cycle of life.