Diana Helmuth

I'm Diana Helmuth (pronounced "hell - myth")

I am a nonfiction author, freelance writer, Silicon Valley startup veteran, hiker, producer and cupcake baker. I'm a pretty bad gardener, but I try to do that, too.

My work has been featured in The New York Times, All Things Considered, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Seattle Times, CurbedSF, Outdoor Life, Pajiba, Adventure Journal and Longreads.

My writing usually (but not always) centers on travel, nature, culture, and millennial philosophical trends. I try to keep things funny. I also cry a lot.​

My first book How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner's Guide to Hiking and Backpacking (Mountaineers Press) won the National Outdoor Book Award for Best Instructional. My second book, The Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft (Simon Element), was nominated for the 2023 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Memoir. I was NPR's "Main Character of the Day" on November 1, 2023.

I have interviewed 150+ subject matter experts for Abrams' Books famous Fifty Places travel series. I occasionally write and test backpacking gear for Outdoor Life magazine.

Like most writers, writing is not all I do. In the San Francisco Bay Area, I have helped numerous startups with operational growth and thoughtful creation of first products. My business experience is here.

I am a producer on Da7e and Neil's Pop Culture Adventure (where we're currently re-watching The Leftovers). Before that, I produced The Storm: A Lost Rewatch Podcast headed by Joanna Robinson (The Ringer), Neil Miller (One Perfect Shot) and Dave Gonzales (Thrillist), and saw it exceed 4 million downloads.

I studied Cultural Anthropology at UC Berkeley and the American University in Cairo under multiple scholarships.

I have an obsession with empathy. You may have seen me dance.

I am on LinkedIn, Bluesky and Instagram, but we're having more fun on TikTok.