Meet Lisa Stewart
Author. Speaker. Consultant.
An award-winning author and internationally recognized long-distance horseback adventurer, Lisa’s motivational presentations remind listeners of three radical truths—the world is safe, keeping the farm in the family is within your control, and city and country people are the same, they just occupy more or less land.
As co-founder of Ortho-Flex Saddle Company, Lisa teaches equestrians how to prevent horses’ suffering through humane saddling—an understanding of horse and saddle anatomy. Her commitment to rural America involves helping farmers and ranchers stay on the land through grant-funded diversification and expansion plans.
At 54, Lisa set out to regain the fearless girl she once had been, riding her horse, Chief, 500 miles home. Hot, homeless, and horseback, she snapped back into every original cell. On an extraordinary homegoing from Kansas City to Bates and Vernon Counties in Missouri, Lisa exhausted herself, faced her past, trusted strangers, and stayed in the middle of her frightened horse to document modern rural America, the people, animals, and land. The result was a compelling and uplifting memoir, The Big Quiet—One Woman’s Horseback Ride Home.
Lisa lives with her husband, Robert Stewart, editor emeritus of New Letters magazine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, in Prairie Village, Kansas. She consults with farmers and agribusinesses around the United States.