Weaver-Zercher Lends Talents to New Edition

February 24th, 2011

Writer-editor Valerie Weaver-Zercher ’94 is behind the newly revised and updated edition of Living More with Less (Herald Press, 2010).

Doris Janzen Longacre, author of the bestselling More-with-Less Cookbook (over 900,000 sold since 1976), wrote Living More with Less as a practical guide for simple, sustainable, and healthy living. Longacre died of cancer on Nov. 10, 1979, as she was nearing completion of Living More with Less, her second book. Her husband, Paul Longacre (class of ’61), completed the last two chapters.

Under Weaver-Zercher’s editorship, this 30th anniversary edition is true to Longacre’s spirit of living in ways respectful of poor people, God’s creation and each other. It contains new and practical tips on such matters as money, travel, clothing, housing, celebrations and recreation. The book’s proceeds will benefit Mennonite Central Committee.

Weaver-Zercher was one of the literary artists covered in the summer 2010 edition of Crossroads, but she was mischaracterized in that issue as a “full-time mother to her two sons.” Weaver-Zercher has three sons, and she has a vibrant career. (The Crossroads editor apologizes for making these errors; they were the result of unknowingly publishing out-dated information.)

Weaver-Zercher lives in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Her features, essays, op-eds, and book reviews have been published in a variety of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Orion, Publishers Weekly, Sojourners, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Books & Culture, Mothering, Brain, Child, Literary Mama, The Mennonite, Mennonite Weekly Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The Other Side.

Her essay “Holding Baby Birds” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and receives special mention in the Pushcart Prize XXXIII anthology (2009). She received a 2009 Individual Artist’s Fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Weaver-Zercher has received two first-place awards from the Associated Church Press and one first-place award from the Evangelical Press Association. She is a regular book reviewer for The Christian Century, an editorial consultant for Cascadia Publishing House, a poetry consultant for The Mennonite, and a contributing editor to Sojourners.

In addition to writing and consulting, she does developmental editing, copyediting, and manuscript review for a variety of publishers and individuals. Her clients have included Brazos Press, Baker Academic, InterVarsity Press, Herald Press, Cascadia Publishing House, and scholars who have gone on to receive book contracts with Jossey-Bass and Oxford University Press.

Weaver-Zercher has a master’s degree in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania. She majored in English at EMU.