about
Crissy Trask is the bestselling author of It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living (Gibbs Smith, 2006), a freelance writer, green lifestyle coach and the creator of the earliest comprehensive green lifestyle website—http://www.greenmatters.com/, launched in 1999.
It’s Easy Being Green has become one of the most successful books in the genre of prescriptive green living, achieving sales of over 100,000 copies. The success of It’s Easy Being Green along with Crissy’s twelve-year career delivering advice on all things green has established her as a highly practical authority on the subject of sustainable living.
Writing
In addition to writing books, Crissy writes articles, booklets, web content and a blog informing and inspiring readers to go green. From carbon offsets, to indoor air quality to eco-friendly de-icers, Crissy writes on a wide range of subjects drawing from thorough research, expert interviews and her own in-depth knowledge. Her work has appeared in Natural Home, Natural Awakenings, Renovation Style, Building, New at Home and Spokesman Review among others. She has contributed to websites including ecomii.com, brighterplanet.com, canadianliving.com and seussi.com.
Crissy’s blog, located at http://www.greenmatters.com/green-blog, can be informative or provocative, depending on what’s on her mind!
Speaking
Crissy speaks to audiences across the U.S. about what she knows best—earth-friendly choices. Her lectures are compelling and informative, providing an appreciation of the cause and effect of our actions as wells as practical and adaptable solutions for greening up our homes and routines. The Bioneers Conference, Phoenix Living Green Conference, Pima Association of Governments’ Alternative Energy Expo and Disney Animation Studios are among the conferences and enterprises that have hosted Crissy as a speaker on sustainable living.
Instructing/Coaching
Writing may be Crissy’s bread and butter, but coaching clients one-on-one or in small groups is what connects her most to the questions, challenges and conflicts people have when it comes to adopting a greener way of doing things. In her role as instructor and coach for Green Matters, Crissy has helped hundreds of people discover and pursue a more eco-conscious way of life since 2004.
From environmentalist to green expert
Crissy’s journey to becoming a green author and green living specialist started long before green living was as popular and talked-about as it is today. She recalls her early experiences with green living—which included everything from making her own natural cleaning concoctions to riding her bike to work (rain or shine) to eyebrow-raising examples of reuse (that’s a whole other story!)—as gratifying, but lonely. Reducing, reusing and recycling back in the 1990s was looked upon as more hippy-dippy-trippy than ecologically imperative. And it was precisely these misconceptions about greener living—as well as complacency about choices and habits that were eroding environmental health—that prompted Crissy to take a risk and launch a unique website (this was the 90s, remember) that would debunk myths about greener living and would be a resource for busy, modern people looking for information on going green, practical green tips and trustworthy sources for earth-friendly products.
Since starting Greenmatters.com over a decade ago, Crissy has dedicated herself to helping people learn how to create greener spaces and adopt greener practices. In 2002 she began the arduous task of researching and writing her first book, It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living—a labor of love that would take two years to finish. Taking the title and the “handbook” angle seriously, Crissy created a book that shows how people living busy, complicated lives can do a lot more than just put their blue recycling box out on the curb each week. During the writing process, Crissy started doing consultations, and in 2004 after the manuscript for It’s Easy Being Green was in the capable hands of Gibbs Smith Publishers, she started Green Matters Home and Lifestyle Consulting. Things got crazy after that. The book launched in 2006 and speaking engagements, interviews and more writing followed.
Crissy has worked long and hard to become a respected voice on environmental issues, and she is frequently featured in the national media in such publications as the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Money, Cooking Light and Vegetarian Times. She has also done live radio, including Martha Stewart Living Radio, Oprah and Friends with Jean Chatzsky and NPR WI.
Today, Crissy is working on two very exciting books, and hopes they will be at a bookstore near you soon!
