Filling the Frame

A book of interviews and photographs to make profiles for eighteen New Zealand women. Filling the Frame is a reflection and celebration of New Zealand women who have filled the framework they have chosen for themselves, and also managed to create interesting lives in this country.

Publlished 1992 by Reed NZ

Bitch and Famous

For more than 25 years Wendyl Nissen has been at the front of the media pack, first as an eager young journalist, then as the influential editor of a string of high-profile women's magazines, a television producer and writer, and as a popular radio commentator and columnist. Throughout her career, she has crossed paths and swords with local and international celebrities. Now, she reveals the tricks of her trade,

Published 2007 by Penguin.

Domestic Goddess on a Budget

Domestic Goddess on a Budget is a user-friendly guide for making money-saving changes in your life to become more natural, sustainable and healthy. Wendyl brings an entertaining and informative approach to greening up everyday activities, from cleaning your house with her natural cleaning recipes, to eating out of your own organic garden and having a go, little by little, step by step at introducing some of the things our grandparents did every day of their lives. 

With difficult economic times ahead, Domestic Goddess on a Budget contains a great deal of practical advice on how to make a little go a lot further. 

Topics include: 

• Cleaning and recipes for cleaning products 
• Kitchen - how to save scraps, not waste food, buy bulk; on a budget, including cheap kids parties & entertaining at home 
• Gardening - potatoes in tyres, tomatoes in bags of potting mix plus recipes, natural pesticide, compost making, etc 
• Beauty plus homemade recipes, e.g. avocado facials 
• Budgeting, home/time management 
• Self-sufficiency to save money - water tanks, grey water tanks, recycling, reusing, repairing, alternative modes of transport 
• How to slow down, stop being perfect and find the right work/life balance for you 

Is there a domestic goddess lurking in you? 

Published 2009 by Penguin.

A Home Companion

The tale of a year-long journey from straight-talking, hard-bitten journalist to green goddess – complete with fabulous recipes and experimental disasters – all told in a smart, funny and self deprecating fashion.

Wendyl Nissen is well-known as a straight talking journalist whose career has seen her edit top-selling magazines, produce ground-breaking television documentaries and take on talkback radio callers without batting a heavily made-up eyelid. But what happened when she let three chickens called Marigold, Hillary and Yoko into her life on 24 October 2008–

A Home Companion details Wendyl's year-long journey towards self sufficiency. The book details each home discovery as it happens – both the triumphs and the disasters – while Wendyl slowly sheds her corporate life and takes to wearing yards of muslin, leather sandals and forgets to straighten her hair.

A Home Companion is the book for any woman who finds herself yearning to get her hands covered in soil, rid her house of nasty chemicals, nurture her family and become a green goddess – even if it's just at the weekends.

Published in 2010 by Allen and Unwin.

Mother's Little Helper

Did you know that some baby wipes contain a substance which is banned for use in products which are inhaled? How many times have you wiped your baby’s nose with a baby wipe?

Wendyl Nissen’s latest book on chemical-free living analyses many commonly used products used on and around our babies and comes up with many natural and old-fashioned alternatives to use instead.

In the US health authorities and paediatricians are so concerned about the number of chemicals babies are being exposed to, even before they are born, that they are petitioning their government to act now before it is too late.

“There has never been a better time to focus on getting back to the days, only about 70 years ago, before the 80,000 chemicals which make their way into our food, beauty products, homes and most importantly near our babies were invented,” says Nissen.

She was prompted to write the book when she ran a poll on one of her weekly Green Goddess newsletters and found that out of 301 respondents only 8.6 per cent were confident that they had the knowledge to avoid chemicals and toxins in their pregnancy.

“The next day I was standing in the supermarket aisle having a look at the baby products on offer and I overheard two young mothers looking at the ingredients label on baby wipes and expressing their concern that they had no idea what was in them,” says Wendyl.

“I immediately bought several brands and took them home to analyse. By the time I’d finished I knew I had to write this book.”

Mother’s Little Helper takes expectant mothers through their pregnancy and right through to the first year of their baby’s life and gives them 85 old-fashioned recipes for everything from baby wipes to face cream and rice cereal.

It also explains which chemicals should be avoided and quotes numerous health studies which are warning us about the dangers of some chemicals in our lives.

Published in 2011  by Wendyl's Green Goddess 

A Supermarket Companion

A guide to additives in supermarket foods including numerous basics such as bread, meat, soft drinks, dairy products and snack foods. Includes recipes for natural and healthy alternatives to each of these. Also includes a comprehensive guide to every food code from 100 to 1520, explaining where the additives come from, what they do in the food and whether they have any potential adverse health effects. Also has a handy illustrated checklist of additives that should be avoided.

Published in 2012 by Wenyl's Green Goddess.

The Road from Midnight

The Road from Midnight is a beautifully written chick lit novel with a thriller twist. It tells the story of magazine editor Jane Cunningham who has it all: a gorgeous, younger celebrity husband, a glamorous, fulfilling career and a beautiful, healthy daughter.
But on the overnight train from Paris to Venice her five-year-old daughter Charlotte, goes missing.
As her life crumbles about her Jane refuses to leave Venice as she clings to a seemingly irrational belief that her daughter is alive somewhere out there.
She haunts the magnificent cathedrals of Venice, praying daily to the Madonna to bring Charlotte safely back to her.
And then one day…she does.
This is a compelling page-turner taking the reader on a journey packed with humour, suspense and a scintillating erotic charge.

Published in 2013 by Paul Little Books.

Wendyl's Recipes for a Cleaner Life

This is the ultimate collection of all Wendyl Nissen's recipes for a cleaner, simpler life. The popular Green Goddess's readers told her that trying to find a recipe across all her books was getting harder to do, so she has put them all into one easy-to-use volume. Wendyl's Recipes for a Cleaner Life will be your go-to recipe book as you make over your kitchen, your beauty routine, your garden, your petcare routines, so you and your family can enjoy the benefits of leading a healthier, chemical-free life. You'll find hundreds of old-fashioned recipes for everything from cleaners to crumpets, soap to seed cake, washing powder to wine and much more.
 

Published in 2014 by Wendyl's Green Goddess

The Natural Home

Wendyl Nissen shares her approach to living a balanced and sustainable life based on an old-fashioned model of growing and cooking your own food, avoiding artificial products and doing your best to avoid letting unnecessary chemical cocktails into your life. In The Natural Home Wendyl shares how easy it is to lead a much healthier life just by making some small changes and remembering the simple way that people used to live. Combining the best information from Wendyl's previous books, including natural recipes for anything from cleaning your toilet to making your own bread, this is excellent advice on how to garden, create healthy food, make natural cleaning and beauty products and raise your baby chemical-free.

Published in 2018 by Allen and Unwin.

A Natural Year

A Natural Year follows writer Wendyl Nissen's life in the peaceful New Zealand countryside over one year.

It's the story of what happens in her garden, her kitchen and her life over twelve months, and the thoughts inspired by each passing season.

She writes about the freedom that she has found in ageing and the joy that comes along with it. She addresses her depression, anxiety and the mental well-being she's gained from her back-to-basics lifestyle and the practical things she does to live in a sustainable, natural way.

With photographs taken at her home in Northland, Wendyl shares 100 new recipes, including how to make yeast from grapes, yoghurt using chilli stalks and many others she has discovered.

In a world which can be full of stress and confusion, A Natural Year is a guide to a simpler, less complicated life.

Published in 2020 by Allen and Unwin.