Todd Oppenheimer
Todd Oppenheimer, the founding Editor & Publisher of Craftsmanship, has been working as a journalist since 1978. The publications he has written for include The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. He has won a variety of awards for his writing and reporting, including a National Magazine Award and a first prize from Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE). He is the author of “The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology” (Random House, 2003, 2004), which was a finalist for IRE’s investigative book award. Todd has been writing about unusual artisans since 2008, when he profiled Bob Kramer, a master bladesmith, for The New Yorker. An expanded version of that story, entitled “The Kitchen Bladesmith,” is now in our pages. Todd lives in San Francisco with his wife and two boys, and is a long-time member of the now-fabled Writers Grotto.
Feature Stories by Todd
- Prince Charles Redefines Originality (writer)
- Artisanal Homemade Bread Made Simple (writer)
- The Apprenticeship Ambivalence (writer)
- The Clay Mystique (writer)
- The Vegetable Detective (writer)
- The Vegetable Detective, Take Two (writer)
- Printing with Love (writer)
- Occupy Your Bathroom (writer & photographer/videographer)
- The Kitchen Bladesmith (writer)
- How Does America “Reshore” Skills that Are Disappearing? (writer)
- The Play Gap (writer)
- The Power of the Scribe (writer)
- Is Digital Craftsmanship an Oxymoron? (writer)
- A Brand New Idea for Commodity Exports (writer)
- “The Future Is Handmade” (writer)
- The Re-Bundled Worker (writer)
- The Drought Fighter (writer)
- Smart Farming (writer)
- Your Salad’s Difficulty with Sustainable Farming (writer)
- The Beauty of a Timeless Rowboat (writer)
- Café Jacqueline and the Art of the Soufflè (writer)
- The Wootz Hunter (writer)
- The Value of Time (writer)
- Walmart’s Made-In-USA Shell Game (writer)
- The Search For The Perfect Leather Bag (writer)
Sidebars by Todd
- A Co-op’s victory over COVID’s economic disruption (writer)
- Labor’s Realities (writer)
- Soil Chemistry’s Invisible Dance (writer)
- The Laws of Thermo-Culinary Dynamics (writer)
- The Dreams of National Kale Day (writer)
- The wide, rich, argumentative world of Internet shaving forums—and the experts and vendors who feed them (writer)
- Marv Obenauf, former wilderness firefighter turned master of leather care (writer)
- The best way to buy a Brooks bicycle seat (writer)
- The Scribal Arts: a Resource Guide (writer)
- Fountain Pen Resources (writer)
- How To Start a Sourdough Starter (writer)
- The Wider World of E.F. Schumacher’s Legacy (writer)
- Interesting, and Lucrative, Apprenticeships: A Few Suggested Resources (writer)
- Getting serious about play: A reading, viewing and resource list (writer)
- How to shop for a bike: Our visit with American Cyclery’s Brad Woehl (writer)
- How our cities got seduced by sewage pipes made of plastic (instead of clay) (writer)
Galleries by Todd
- The Art of a Hand-Stitched Purse (writer)
- How a Japanese Factory Makes a Knife (writer)
Podcasts by Todd
- The Drought Fighter (writer & narrator)
- Artisanal Homemade Bread Made Simple (writer & narrator)
- The Art of the Joke (narrator)
Blogs by Todd
- The Democratization of Craft (writer)
- A Crucible for Tomorrow’s Trades (writer)
- The Intelligent Hand (writer)
