Life Media is a Toronto-based international multi-media information company with an audience in over 20 countries. Our roots reach back to 1976 when Rolf and Wendy Priesnitz were searching for an environmentally-friendly home-based business that would allow them both to work from home in order to help their two daughters learn without schooling (then called "homeschooling," but now more specifically referred to as "unschooling".) So they launched The Alternate Press to publish Natural Life Magazine – one of the original green family living magazines – and a book of poetry called Summer Love, Winter Fires. They are both still in print and were followed by other books, newsletters, newspapers and magazines during the 1980s and '90s.

In 1979, the Canadian Home Schooler newsletter was launched and in 1985 it became Child's Play magazine, which continued until 1993 when it was merged into Natural Life Magazine. In 1985, The Home Business Advocate – an international home business newspaper – was launched. It also became a part of Natural Life Magazine in 1993. Along the way, the company name was updated to Life Media, with The Alternate Press continuing as the book publishing imprint.

Over the years, the company has purchased magazines like Seriatim from San Francisco, California; Positive Vibrations from Victoria, British Columbia; Earthkeeper from Guelph, Ontario; and Growth Spurts from Toronto, Ontario. (An agreement was also made to purchase Mothering magazine from its founder in 1979, but negotiations fell through.) The content of the purchased magazines was merged into Natural Life. A trade magazine for the nascent natural and whole foods industry was launched in the early 1980s, under the banner Natural Foods in Canada.

In the mid 1980s, Wendy Priesnitz began to share her hands-on small business and unschooling experience by presenting keynote speeches and workshops at conferences across North America. She has also written nine books and, from 1996 to 2006, a weekly small business newspaper column. She is currently working on a variety of new books, including a memoir and another unschooling book.

One of the hallmarks of Life Media and of the work of Wendy and Rolf Priesnitz is leadership in helping to pioneer new trends. So In 1994, the company put Natural Life on the web (although it had been available to libraries over the Internet by data pack for a number of years prior to that) and a major commitment was made to electronic publishing in parallel with print.

In 2002, Life Media addressed changing market trends by once again beginning to spin off separate magazines. The first of these, Life Learning Magazine, was launched in March of 2002. Natural Child Magazine was launched in 2008. In 2012, an innovative all-digital business magazine for the natural parenting industry will be launched with the name Natural Parenting Business Journal.

Life Media continues to provide information about natural family living to people around the world. It has won a number of awards, including an Outstanding Media Contribution Award for balanced environmental reporting.

Read articles from 1976 and 1978 describing the early days of Natural Life magazine. Take a look back at the early issues of Natural  Life magazine.