Current News and Events

June 27, 2025:  Winners have been announced for the Sixth Annual Last House Writing Contest hosted by Northern California nonprofit Audubon Canyon Ranch. This year's contest was remarkable, with submissions from around the world and writings that covered a range of creative styles. The contest's theme, water, drew entries from Singapore, Sweden, France, UK, and Thailand to name a few, as well as from across the nation and closer to home in the Bay Area. The evocative subject attracted a wealth of writing approaches, such as science fiction, memoir, poetic reflection, climate fiction, and other styles. 

Among the finalists, there were notable similarities in characterizing water — with water personified as a presence that not only sustains life but has a memory and provides solace to humans.  The grand prize-winning story called on these universal themes. “I Am the Sea, and I Remember,” from 11-year-old Vittoria Molinari from Levallois-Perret, France, is a short and poetic work about the primordial sea reaching out to console a child. 

The Last House Writing Contest honors author M.F.K. Fisher, whose “Last House” is located on the nonprofit's Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen, CA. Her daughter, Kennedy Golden, and grandson, Alex Wright, were two of the esteemed judges of the contest. The panel selected first, second, and third-place winning essays in the Adult, Youth, and Child categories.

Children:  
First place and grand prize: Vittoria Molinari (Levallois-Perret, France), “I Am the Sea, and I Remember” 
Second place: Audrey Chen (Oakville, Ontario, Canada), “The Liquid Revolution” 
Third place: Keziah Khoo (Singapore), “How Can Water”

Youth:  
First place: Afina Chemei Liang (Encinitas, CA), “How to Become a River”

Second place: Rebecca Liu (Queens, NY), “Memories Water Holds” 
Third place: Nicole Um (North Hollywood, CA), “Weight of Empty Cup”

Adults: 

First place: Cooper Matuszak (Richmond, CA), “Wading”
Second place: W Goodwin (Denver, CO), “Footbridge” 
Third place: Laurel Ekstron (Karlskrona, Sweden), “Dead Ice” 

June 14, 2025:  Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 James Beard Media Awards presented by Capital One. The Media Awards took place in Chicago on Saturday, June 14 and honored the nation’s top food authors, broadcast producers, hosts, journalists, podcasters, and social media content creators. The recipients of the 2025 M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award are Jeff Gordinier and George McCalman for their article “the City that Rice Built” from Food & Wine magazine. The award this year was presented by Padma Lakshmi.

July 3, 2025 6:00 p.m. (Champagne reception at 5:30 p.m. for donors)

Skyway Center

655 Skyway Road, San Carlos, CA. 94070

This screening is a benefit for Cat Action Team (CAT), supporting cats in Central Virginia.

The Art of Eating is a feature documentary about the exciting life and lasting impact of the intrepid mid-century California food writer M.F.K. Fisher, who elevated cooking from a domestic chore to a critical study of life itself.

July 24, 2025 5:00 p.m.

Sequoia Cinema

25 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley, CA  94941 

A screening and conversation with filmmaker Gregory Bezat, Fisher’s daughter Kennedy Golden and Mill Valley resident, Mary Dilts, the voice of Fisher in the film. The Art of Eating is a feature documentary about the exciting life and lasting impact of the intrepid mid-century California food writer M.F.K. Fisher, who elevated cooking from a domestic chore to a critical study of life itself.

May 29 - August 8, 2025

21 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley, CA  94941 

Featuring: Emma Amos, Ruth Asawa, Teresa Baker, Carol Bove, Libby Black, Tracey Emin, Terri Friedman, Yayoi Kusama, Nan Montgomery, Soumya Netrabile, Rel Robinson, Daisy Sheff, Tabitha Soren & Rosie Lee Tompkins.

Public reception: May 29, 5-7:30 p.m.

May 31, 2025

Pigott Theatre, British Library, London

A celebration of the Californian maverick, feminist food writer M.F.K. Fisher.

This event is part of the British Library's Food Season Big Weekend. Make the most of a brilliant series of discussions about food from all over the world, its big issues and its simple pleasures.

M.F.K. Fisher has long been the food writer's food writer. Before anyone else, her writing melded memory, personal experience and metaphor, alongside a sharp eye for detail, a passion for eating well and wry sense of humour. Her essays have inspired chefs and set the benchmark for food writing for decades. She has also inspired a tribute album from the conceptual band Extradition Order. Join the band along with a panel of food writers, M.F.K. Fisher experts and M.F.K. Fisher’s family as they discuss her legacy.

Episode aired September 9, 1990

A WORLD OF IDEAS with Bill Moyers aired in 1988 and 1990. The half-hour episodes featured scientists, writers, artists, philosophers, historians -- some well-known, many never before seen on television. M.F.K. Fisher  describes her writing process, her interest in food, and shares her outlook on life.

Link courtesy of A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers [Ep. 229]: M.F.K. Fisher, September 9, 1990, Public Affairs Television & Doctoroff Media Group (New York, New York), American Archive of Public Broadcasting (WGBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. 

March 5, 2025

Extradition Order’s Poet of the Appetites is the concluding part ofcthe band’s ‘American Century’ trilogy. The album is inspired by the lives and loves of M.F.K. Fisher. Fisher appealed to the band for her clean, precise prose and her life of appetite and desire, presenting another side to the ‘American Century’ triangle than politics or science. The trilogy's first two albums focused on John F. Kennedy and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The album is available for purchase digitally or on vinyl.

Nashville, Tennessee

April 4-5, 2025

Presented by Les Dames d'Escoffier International, The inaugural M.F.K. Fisher Symposium will be a one-of-a-kind gathering to celebrate the achievements of women in food media while fostering new opportunities for collaboration and growth. This two-day event is an evolution of the M.F.K. Fisher Prize and will bring together women from across the worlds of journalism, food writing, media, PR, and more. 

New York Times Style Magazine

November 15, 2024

"Despite its millions of recipes, the internet hasn’t killed cookbooks. Instead, the genre’s fans seem more motivated than ever to collect and use them — and not just for making dinner. For some, they’re bedside reading. For others, they’re design objects. A cookbook can be a work of cultural anthropology, a historical record, an instruction manual and a vehicle for armchair travel. But what makes a cookbook great? In trying to compile T’s list of the 25 most essential examples written in English over the past 100 years, we prioritized influence — how has a book affected the way we eat, cook, think, talk, photograph and write about food?"

M.F.K. Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf is included at number eight on the list.

July 3, 2024: Sunrises, dark woods, ocean swims, skeletons, crickets, owls, ponds…the main characters in this year’s Last House Writing Contest submissions — spanning generations and the globe — were nearly all animal or elemental. Now in its fifth year, the contest called on emerging writers to explore belonging in nature.

Adults:
First place & grand: Scott McMorrow, “Bird People” 
Second place: Eva Parr, “Land Intimacy” 
Third place: Sara Alexander, “Le Fave” 

Youth:
First place: Isabella Guglielmetti, “Cricket, Cricket” 
Second place: Biana Toussaint, “Shadow Cliffs” 
Third place: Katie Kim, “Treasure Hunt” 

Children:
First place: Annika Thakarar (grand prize winner 2022), “The Pond”  
Second place: Kellie Howie, “Untitled” 
Third place: Siaansh Bhadaurie, “Givers and Takers”

June 8, 2024: The James Beard Foundation® is proud to announce the winners of the

2024 James Beard Media Awards presented by Capital One, honoring the nation’s top food authors,

broadcast producers, hosts, journalists, podcasters, and social media content creators. The recipient of the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award is Hannah Dreier for "The Kids on the Night Shift" published in The New York Times.