Meet Rebecca Fyffe

Eloquently Engaging Ethnoecologist

Rebecca Fyffe is an avid photographer and writer with a strong interest in social justice, anthropology, ethnobotany, the rainforest and indigenous peoples. Professionally, she is a state-certified nuisance wildlife control specialist and wildlife educator who leads public health outreach for the nonprofit organization, the Wildlife Control Policy Institute, NFP, civil engineering-scale architectural bird control projects for Chicago Wildlife Management and Consulting and strategic direction for ABC Humane Wildlife Control and Prevention, Illinois’ largest nuisance wildlife control firm. Rebecca has been cultivating her relationship with fungi since before she could walk. She is now the president of the Illinois Mycological Association and encourages others to explore a passion for mycology, including her 7-year old daughter Prairie Celeste.

Interview with Rebecca Fyffe:

Female & Fungi: We saw your interview with Jesse Watters from Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor and your memorable mentioning of how he should dress up as Mutinus caninus the “Dog’s Penis Stinkhorn.” Would you like to comment on that?

Rebecca Fyffe: Yes, the moral of the story is, jerks shouldn’t ask quick thinkers for Halloween costume suggestions. However, after spending a day with the mycologists and anthropologists in Telluride, his attitude changed rather dramatically as he began to believe in what we’re doing there, and had a great time. He said he learned a lot, too! When the final segment aired on “The O’Reilly Show,” O’Reilly tried to paint the Telluride Mushroom Festival as something really frivolous, which it’s not. At that point, Jesse actually came to the Festival’s defense and tried to convince O’Reilly of its merit. After interacting with all of the scientists, biologists, and avid connoisseurs, he realized that the participants are highly intelligent people, and that the work they’re doing is credible.

FF: How many years have you been going to the Telluride Mushroom Festival?

RF: I attended for the first time in 2003, and I’ve tried to get back every year since then. It’s my favorite mycological event, because it perfectly balances the confluence of different facets or sub-fields within mycology. The taxonomic aspect is represented through outstanding forays into the mountains led by expert guides. The gourmet element is present and totally scalable, ranging from a do-it-yourself cooking tent set up in the park with frying pans, free butter and burners where you can cook your own mushrooms, to very high-end fundraising dinners at $150 a ticket with world famous chefs. You can attend the festival cheaply and camp in a tent at the town’s campsite, or you can stay in a luxury hotel and arrange tickets to gourmet dinners. Either way, you’ll have a great time.

The lectures are amazing. Some of the best mycology lectures I’ve attended in my life have been in Telluride. Some of the most outstanding speakers have included Tom Volk on Puffballs, Britt Bunyard on Chaga, Eugenia Bone on commercial pickers, Robert Rogers on medicinal fungi, presenters from MAPS on entheogens, anthropologist Kat Harrison (who was married to Terrence McKenna) on shamanism, and Gary Lincoff on absolutely anything he happens to be speaking about, because he’s the most brilliant, dynamic and hilarious presenter there is. Gary and Art Goodtimes lead the festival, with Gary acting as a botanist-philosopher-comedian, if such a thing exists. You can come to Telluride for the mushrooms and the education and go home well satisfied. You can also come for the personalities and go away fat and happy, as the festival creates a magical meeting of minds. It’s like being in Brigadoon for one week a year: we all go down the rabbit hole together, accessing a magical realm that doesn’t open up again until the following year. The parade is wild too. People dress up as their favorite fungi and drum, dance and sing their way down Main Street. Participating in the parade is like attending Burning Man or some other art-centered celebration that encourages unbridled creativity and expression. There are pregnant women with big Amanita muscaria painted on their abdomens, folks as old as 90 dressed as mushrooms– people from all walks of life who love mushrooms, self-expression and pageantry. It’s a blast- -like TED Talks meets Burning Man meets Outward Bound! Last year I brought my 72-year old father, my 7-year old daughter and 11 people from the Illinois Mycological Association. This year, I hope even more friends can come, because there’s nothing like it.

FF: What is it that you have been contributing to the T.M.F. community?

RF : Next year I am going to moderate the panel on medicinal fungi. I’m very interested in fungi for the treatment and prevention of cancer and other conditions. I had a large tumor in 2007, and my doctor wanted me to have radical surgery. I chose to treat it with medicinal mushrooms and other nutrition instead, and it’s gone. 100-percent gone. Mushrooms can be used as a complementary treatment for a wide range of conditions. I’m especially interested in how Hericium is showing efficacy in the treatment of nerve damage, dementia and other conditions that effect myelin in the brain. Also, in addition to being anti-cancer and important for liver health, cordyceps may be key in helping menopausal women maintain their bone density. I’ve read that it can also reduce other menopausal symptoms, like vaginal dryness, as well.

The results of international human trials on medicinal fungi are not well publicized in the U.S., because of the way the FDA manages pharmaceuticals made from whole organisms, namely calling them supplements and preventing their efficacy from being discussed publicly in commerce. Even when fungi demonstrate efficacy in peer reviewed human trials, U.S. companies cannot share the data, because making the studies available would be an implied claim and would violate laws governing supplements. I strongly feel that my tumor was cured with the help of medicinal mushrooms in spite of public health policy and supplement laws, rather than in any way thanks to them.

If people want this information, they have to find it themselves, because the purveyors of these products are prevented from sharing it with the public. People making and selling the mushroom products can’t even provide links to studies on their web sites, so you really have to piece the information together. The best way to do that is to use Google Scholar. Try it by going to http://scholar.google.com and entering the search terms “cordyceps bone density” or “ganoderma cancer” or “hericium dementia.” These terms will pull up all of the international studies I’ve referenced and connect you with this important health information.

FF: This is really powerful knowledge and information. When did you become interested in medicinal fungi?

RF: In 1999 my friend Mike had brain cancer. He’s doing well today, and he’s now my research assistant at the nonprofit, but at the time he was diagnosed, they didn’t think he would make it. My father, who is in an ethnobotanist specializing in the American prairie, knew a lot about fungi. It happened to be the fall during maitake season, and my father told me to feed Mike maitake at every meal, which I did. He ended up eating one pound a day leading up to his remission, and he has now been cancer-free for more than ten years. I know that many factors have to combine for a person’s immune system to beat cancer, but it’s my belief, which research supports, that medicinal mushrooms have a role to play.

When I found out that I had a huge tumor, I freaked out, because Prairie was only one-year old, and I was terrified to leave her. I had seen anecdotally how powerful medicinal mushrooms can be, and I had also read hundreds of pages of medical research on them, mostly from Asia. I began consuming large quantities of Tremetes versicolor, Grifola frondosa, Ganoderma applanatum, Agaricus blazeii and a few others. I probably consumed an average of 20 grams each day as a powder that I steeped in hot water with ginger and other herbs, like milkthistle, ginseng and astragalus. I also began sprouting broccoli sprouts and fenugreek and blending them into sulfur-tasting green smoothies with raw parsley and fresh rhizomes of turmeric in my Vitamix. I grew and juiced wheatgrass everyday too. In about four months, I felt the pain and pressure in my abdomen subsiding, and after one year, my tumor was gone. When people ask me what to take, I direct them to Aloha Medicinals’ product Immune Assist Critical Care that is a blend of six medicinal fungi and has been tested and proven to be 70-percent more effective and cheaper than other companies’ offerings. People should be taking this even if they don’t have cancer, at least two pills a day (1 gram). The varieties of mushrooms in this product are immune modulators rather than immune stimulants, so it’s recommended for people with autoimmune disorders, as well.

Someone with cancer should take some additional things along with their medicinal mushrooms to increase effectiveness. I recommend APS-40, which is Transfer Factor protein that can also be sourced from Aloha. I learned about Transfer Factor while reading about the complementary medicine program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Here’s their page, which discusses a number of very compelling studies http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/herb/transfer-factor. No one who sells these products can say this in the U.S. or call this a medicine. Here it is classified as a supplement because of FDA regulations. Only patentable things can be called medicine. In other countries though, this is legitimate medicine and people frequently take 12-20 grams per day of medicinal mushrooms while undergoing cancer treatment.

FF: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. It’s powerful information that will speak to a lot of people. We can see your passion for mycomedicinals, what else do you love about mycology?

RF: I love the relationship between fungi and the natural world. Mushrooms don’t grow on a hot, dry planet, so monitoring fungi is a great way to gage forest health and climate change. Anyone who loves fungi also loves standing old-growth forests, so turning people on to fungi is a great way to breed ecologists and environmentalists.

I’m also a beekeeper, and I’m really into insects, so entomopathic fungi are one of my favorite areas of mycology. Until recently, it was believed that fungi were insect pathogens, but it seems that some fungi may actually be beneficial symbionts. Take the ghost moth in Tibet, for instance, researchers now suspect that the cordyceps is adaptive for the moth and can help it thrive in the low-oxygen environment of the Himalayas. It’s probably not a parasite at all.

I love gourmet mushrooms too! I eat a plant-based diet, so mushrooms comprise the bulk of my dietary protein and Vitamin D. I love foraging and cooking foraged foods, and I host a dinner party at my house every spring called the “Annual Dead Elm Society Dinner.” All of my friends who hunt morels come together with their bounties and we compete Iron Chef-style, using morels as our theme ingredient for prizes and accolades. Some of the recipes are really extraordinary, soups and quiches, foams and perfectly crispy morels in filo nests. We’re judging more than just the overall taste of the dish, as we’re also looking for a real mastery of cooking mushrooms. Leaving mushrooms flabby, rather than reducing them thoroughly and glycating their edges won’t earn good marks in this group. We want to see that you’ve concentrated the flavor and really played up the umami factor. Basically though, the party is a con game, but none of my friends have ever caught on. We have them show up with pounds of morels and cook them for us only to have their cooking criticized. The same people fall for it year after year, and we have a blast! 2011 was a great morel year and 20 of us put 30 pounds of morels on the table. The filo nest dish with morels and truffle foam won, by the way. The worst dish was morels in a tomato aspic. It was this red gelatinous thing that looked like a wounded animal with beautiful morels suspended inside. Luckily there are multiple categories though, so the aspic won “most adventurous” or something.

FF: How did you first learn about mycology?

RF: I’m my father’s only son, which means I had to do a lot of fishing and outdoor activity. He was a consultant to the EPA and a naturalist at the River Trail Nature Museum when I was growing up. My mother was disabled and couldn’t get me ready for school, so she sent me to work with my father instead. We called it homeschooling, but really I was truant because I couldn’t get out the door to school with a lunch packed and my hair combed. It was pretty dysfunctional, but I learned a lot about nature. My parents also ran a home-based business that I was very involved with, so when I wasn’t in school, I learned a lot about entrepreneurship too.

My first memory of mushrooms is from when I was one-and-a-half years-old sitting on my grandparents’ table in giant pile of morels that my father had picked. He learned mushroom hunting from his old aunts and cousins who lived in the rural Hickory forests of Shelby County, Illinois. They’re part Native American and meals at their house often consisted of squirrels and morels. We visited them every summer growing up, and their pastoral life left a big imprint on me during my formative years.

One of my father’s main duties at the nature museum was leading woodland tours. I was deeply engaged with the information, and he would assign me little parts of the interpretative tour to narrate. After a few years, I had his talk memorized. By the time I turned 11, I became “too cool” to like what my dad liked. Eventually, I had some nine piercings, an orange mohawk, and wouldn’t hang out with my Dad. Instead, I would just roll my eyes and pretend I wasn’t listening. When I got a little older and back into science again, I began leading my own tours. My dad came along and was completely tickled when he realized I wasn’t as tuned out as I had seemed during junior high, because I parroted most of his tour verbatim. He said victoriously, “I guess you were listening after all!”

FF: How has your father’s work as an ethnobotanist influenced you and your worldview in general, experiencing all of that from a young age?

RF: It was really great, especially when interesting people would stay with us. We regularly had visitors from Africa and the Amazon. We learned about their plant medicines and their relationship to fungi and the natural world. I remember some Maasai and Zulu people were visiting in their traditional clothing. Their shields and spears were balanced against the wall while they ate.

My dad’s friend, Jim Gillihan, was the keeper of Sitting Bull’s pipe. I remember thinking that his friends and colleagues were pretty cool. He would drive groups of Native Americans in busses and vans to Washington D.C. to have meetings on the White House lawn about land, the environment and other civil rights issues. I remember being woken up at dawn when I was 10 or 11 and being loaded into the car for a long drive to a misty cornfield, because a white buffalo was born and the pipe needed to get there.

We also had Peruvian shaman and Ayahuasqueros come stay with us when they were coming through town. It was like my family pioneered “couch surfing” before it was a thing. We didn’t always know them, but we always had interesting guests. People sent their friends. My father briefly dealt in African art and that aspect wasn’t always fun. There was always weird stuff around the house; for example, poison darts, that may or may not have been active, which are used to impart juju. It was hard getting my schoolmates not to touch things. What was even harder was keeping their attention once they met my dad. All of the cutest boys in school came over to my house every day, but they generally followed my dad around, doing what he did, like sorting his knife collection, carving bone or pipestone, making drums or gourds or throwing tomahawks in the backyard. We took kids mushroom hunting all the time. I can’t tell you how many notes and calls I receive from people who say that my family turned them on to mushrooms. That’s definitely a legacy I’m proud of.

FF: What do you have lying around your house?

RF: I have bundles of porcupine quills; a taxidermied mounted bat; a pigeon skeleton all wired to stand up; rock collections; shells; dried fungi; and a large saber tooth tiger skull. I also have a brontosauruses’ ulna that my paleontologist friend gave me, though she said I shouldn’t touch it because it’s probably radioactive, so I don’t interact too much with that one. I have tons of books too–primarily on anthropology and history.

Mostly my home is full of eccentrics. That’s something I’ve carried on from my parents’ home. We had a group of filmmakers who were recreating Che Guevara’s journey to Argentina, an expert on the mythology of the reindeer shaman, a mystic who lived in a cave with his shruti box, and some professors who didn’t remember how they got my business card come through last year. We sort of run a free bed & breakfast where, in exchange for our guests’ delightful company, we happily provide accommodations, strong coffee in the morning, and international vegetarian cuisine.

FF: It sounds like it runs in the family. Who have been some of your other role models and mentors and why?

RF: Mark Plotkin, author of The Shaman’s Apprentice. He went into tribes and villages where the shamans were dying with their knowledge, because none of the youth were interested in becoming apprentices. Mark interviewed members of these tribes and asked younger adults why they weren’t apprenticing. They said that they were leaving their traditions because they believed western medicine is stronger than tribal medicine.

He corrected them, and explained that many key western medicines come from shamanic traditions. I really like what Plotkin has done, because field research is critical to mycology as well. Many people going into mycology through bioscience programs have little field experience, and that’s where mycological associations come in. Some of the most brilliant young field mycologists, like Noah Siegel, Alan Rockefeller, Christian Schwarz, Toby Esthay, Erin Blanchard and Rocky Houghtby, entered the field of mycology through mycological associations by attending forays and studying at the knees of giants like David Arora, Gary Lincoff and others. These young mycologists are literally the shaman’s apprentices and are keeping field mycology alive, rather than coming up through lab programs and being strangers to the woods.

We’re very lucky in the Illinois Mycological Association to have Patrick Leacock, adjunct curator of mycology for the Field Museum of Natural History, who is an outstanding field mycologist and is always happy to mentor IMA members and allow them to participate and contribute to his fieldwork. We collect and submit specimens to the museum’s herbarium and, with Patrick’s help, can provide a world class science education for interested members.

The Field Museum of Natural History has a really active group of mycologists studying mushrooms in the region and lichens worldwide. Drs. Avis, Mueller, and Leacock are running a long-term project near Chicago that simulates how continued nitrogen pollution might affect mushrooms that form partnerships with tree roots. They found a 20% decline in the numbers of mycorrhizal species after threee years with only a tripling of added nitrogen; that’s what we might expect in 25 years. Carrie Andrew joined the second phase of the project that is following up to see if the diversity decline increases and which mushrooms are affected. A decrease in fungal diversity will lead to a total decrease in biodiversity. If plants don’t have their complementary fungi they will be more vulnerable to diseases. Many tree pathogens are brought in by non-native insects brought north by climate change, which continues to worsen. So, mycology is an extremely important way to monitor pollution and climate change. By getting involved with your local mycological associations, you can play a role in the science behind conservation ecology.

FF: Are you a mentor? How do you see mentorship playing a role in the mycological community?

RF: Yeah, definitely I think so. The trait that makes me a mentor is not that I have an extensive knowledge of mycology, because I can name a hundred people who know more, but rather, I make mycology broadly accessible to people. I seek connections between our mycological association and other organizations with overlapping interests, like plant groups, natural fiber arts circles, hiking clubs and so on. By doing so, we have increased our enrollment by 40-percent, which means that many more people are becoming involved in mycology. Also, people who weren’t active before are very active now. So yes, I view myself as a mentor who teaches people how to get engaged with the subject, while not necessarily teaching the subject matter itself. I bring in experts to do that.

When I talk with new mycological association members about playing a more active role, they sometimes note that they just want to watch, but not contribute, because they’re embarrassed that they don’t know very much. I would like newbies to know that their talents are welcome. The goal is not for people to show off their expertise, but rather, to learn and contribute through participation in learning. Henry Van Dyke said, “Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” I would like everyone to bring their talents. The approach I take as the president of the Illinois Mycological Association is to encourage newcomers to mycology to help in simple ways, like staffing our t-shirt table or helping organize events, so they can be engaged and active while learning and having fun with other members of the association.

FF: If you had advice to give a newbie in the field, what would it be?

RF: If someone wanted to start skiing, they would need to spend a lot of money on expensive equipment and instruction. That’s not the case with mycology. For people who want to learn about mushrooms, they just have to show up and go out on a walk and learn. And then, when you want to invest $30 for a field guide and a hand loop, instead of the $1500 for ski equipment, then you can do that and take a closer look.

My advice is to join a local mycological association and attend the lectures, meetings, forays. If you don’t have a mycological association in your area, start one on Meetup.com. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how many people are interested in learning about mushrooms. You are also likely to find local experts in the field to help your group, if you link your Meetup page with similarly-inclined groups, like those focusing on hiking and botany.

FF: What about in the field? Have fungi given you any noteworthy advice?

RF: That’s a really good question. Yes, they definitely have. The advice I’ve gotten from fungi is that they are really good for my body. When I replace meat in my diet with mushrooms, I get healthier. I haven’t had a cold since I began drinking medicinal mushroom teas. When I use mushrooms as medicine and as a lens through which to expand my consciousness, they resonate with my humanity on so many levels that they feel essential to my personal growth and comfortable expansion.

FF: What do you think are some of the parallels between female & fungi?

RF: I love that question most of all! Women are historically the gatherers, while men are the hunters. I’ve wondered if that’s why men were allowed to evolve with colorblindness and women weren’t. I think colorblindness is almost 20 times more common in males than females. Could it be because colorblindness for a hunter is no big deal, since a caribou is a caribou in any shade, but if a woman forages the wrong plant or mushroom, she takes her whole family out of the gene pool? This tells me that, perhaps, females evolved to recognize and make subtle distinctions between poisonous and edible plants and fungi, even more so than our male counterparts. Are women actually better at distinguishing the subtle color variations in fungi? I’d love it if someone studied that. Also, women have a keener sense of smell. On our forays, we tap the women’s superior olfactory sensitivity to weigh in on whether a specimen smells almond, shrimp, peppery, spermatic, garlicky or otherwise.

FF: You are a journalist and publicist professionally. What does journalism as a construct provide for the field of mycology?

RF: I’ve utilized my journalism and PR background extensively as president of the Illinois Mycological Association. The IMA was hosting amazing lectures, but we weren’t promoting them to groups through the press and targeted releases so that people who would enjoy the lectures could know about them and attend. I increased the number and scope of announcements and press releases sent out by the organization, and sought collaboration with like-minded organizations. In the past, the association tended to have only 10 to 20 people show up for monthly lectures. Now our monthly events average 60 participants. Our forays have grown, too. It’s not uncommon for us to have 40 to 60 people in the woods. I also like to offer PR to speakers to cross-promote their books and other projects to a wider audience. It’s a symbiotic relationship. They talk to our group, while I share information about their work via National Public Radio and other media outlets. I’ve also expanded our outreach through popular social media outlets like Facebook, Meetup, Craigslist’s event listings, and the calendars of various newspapers. I hope other mycological associations will tap their younger, or more internet-savvy members, to maximize the modes of electronic outreach that we’ve found so effective for our club. Clubs can even create officer positions on their boards for a member-at-large/director of PR and marketing.

FF: When you write science articles, what topics do you write about?

RF: I used to write a couple of columns for Chicagoland newspapers and would generally pick my own topics. Sometimes the editor would assign a topic to me. However, the papers had weekly publication schedules, and I found that I prefer to have time to write articles that investigate topics with the level of depth that I find satisfying. Creating articles on deadlines wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing. I vastly prefer to pick topics that I’m passionate about and write about them in depth, taking the time to conduct amazing interviews and develop interesting connections.

After getting an article to the point where I feel comfortable publishing it, I reach out to publications to see who wants to run it. I am currently writing an article about ginseng. People think the biggest threat to ginseng is over harvesting by people. However, the real threat is improper management of white tail deer populations. Foragers are required to replant all of the ripe berries back into the ground for every ginseng root they take. Deer aren’t able to do that, and the seeds are not able to survive their intestinal tracts. With deer being so over populated, they’ve emerged, along with habitat loss, as the greatest threat to ginseng.

As a science writer, I also watch for interesting new research released through the CDC or in scholarly journals. My goal is to translate the technical language of these reports into broadly accessible articles and to share the information through a variety of popular publications.

FF: How long have you been doing journalism work?

RF: I want to say forever. I was one of those really weird kids who, at elementary school age, went to university with a backpack and sat in on classes. When I was in third grade, I took my first college level writing course. It was a creative writing class at Northwestern University in Evanston. I felt like a weirdo, but I loved the level of discourse. I was very lucky to have early exposure to people who were doing interesting work and were willing to let me come along to watch and help out.

I’ve always considered myself a storyteller, radiophile and writer; however, I was 23 when I accepted the first job in which I was paid to write professionally. I was a professional writer for the Office of the Governor of Illinois. What I enjoyed writing the most while in that position was Illinois’ portion of the federal reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act (TANF). I was able to host and moderate forums of experts and participate in making recommendations about the act based on what emerged from those forums. I’m still crazy about helping people who have ideas to share deliver their ideas to broad audiences. That’s what I’m interested in doing through the Illinois Mycological Association, the Telluride Mushroom Festival and beyond. I like to facilitate the exchange of ideas and create forums for the expansion of knowledge.

FF: Do you have any written works that are your favorite?

RF: Yeah, I like futurism. I really love people who dream about the technologies of the future. Now that 30 or 40 years have passed, we can see how keen predictions by people like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and especially, Aldous Huxley, and Frank Herbert in his work “Dune,” really were. Now I mostly read anthropology books and historical novels. I’m currently reading Aztec by Gary Jennings and anything I can by Tom Robbins.

FF: You have a daughter as well, and you brought her to the Telluride Mushroom Festival last year. What are some of the ways that you engage her with taxonomy?

RF: I help Prairie learn binominal nomenclature by inventing silly songs about mushrooms that pair their Latin name, common name and characteristics. Often these songs are silly, because it seems that everyone’s ability to remember them seems proportionate to how much I’m willing to humiliate myself singing them. A good example is the song for Omphalotus, which goes something like: “If you put Omphalotus into your soup, you are surely gonna barf and poop, Omphalotus –la-la-la, Omphalotus –la-la-la, yeah, don’t eat the jack-o-lantern Omphalotus!”

FF: Ha! That is great!

RF: I will share the videos of her singing the Omphalotus song, as well as songs about other species, on the Illinois Mycological Association Facebook page for anyone who is interested in watching them.

FF: Awesome! Thank you for that. If you could be a mushroom, which one would you be and why?

RF: If I could be a mushroom, I would be a morel in Tibet because I love its name in Tibetan: “khukhu shamo,” something I learned from Daniel Winkler. It is named this because it comes up in spring, when Cuckoos are flying around and everything is mating and frolicking in the Himalayas. I love the spring and renewal. The vernal equinox (March 20th) is my favorite day fo the year!

FF: Thank you so much Rebecca for taking the time for this interview. We really appreciate you sharing all of your knowledge, wisdom and heartwarming passion. Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

RF: Get involved. You are a part of this planet and understanding how it works and how to protect it is your birthright and responsibility. Mycology is a great way to embark on a journey focused on understanding life on earth and your role in it. The only qualification you need to become involved is to be here. So, get involved and make a difference!

Rebecca Fyffe interviews John Holliday of Aloha Medicinals

(This is a super rad interview!):



We want to thank Rebecca for being a truly awesome interviewee and inspiration to us all!

To learn more about the Illinois Mycological Association visit their facebook page here.

Rebecca has also been named the Director of the 2014 Telluride Mushroom Festival.

To contact Rebecca email her at: rebfyffe@gmail.com

The What & Why of Honoring “Womyn of the Month”

Womyn of the Month recognizes womyn scientists, activists, community organizers, humanitarians, and other womyn that are making a difference in the field of mycology or alongside our fungal friends. If you would like to nominate a womyn for this honor, please contact us at womynsmycology@gmail.com.

