Susie Spikol
Ever since she can remember, naturalist and writer Susie Spikol, has always been thrilled by the sight of any wild animal. Whether it was the fireflies that lit up her childhood home in Brooklyn or holding a woolly bear caterpillar with her youngest child, Susie’s life work has been helping people of all ages find ways to notice and connect with the wild creatures of our everyday world.
Over the course of her 30 year career as a naturalist she has taught thousands of children, parents, and teachers and given hundreds of public talks at nature centers, schools, colleges, universities, libraries, and conferences. She is the recipient of New Hampshire’s Environmental Educator Award. Whether she’s talking about star-nosed moles or how to help children engage with the natural world, her passion and commitment to connecting people with the natural world is clearly communicated.
When not catching frogs with preschoolers, tracking bobcats with middle-schoolers, or hawk-watching with her own three children, Susie tucks away to time to write. Her writing has appeared consistently in Northern Woodlands magazine and several of her essays have been featured in environmental educator and author David Sobel’s books. Look for her essays in Taproot Magazine and the Center for Humans and Nature magazine, Minding Nature. She is a regular contributor to the column “Backyard Nature” in her local paper, The Monadnock Ledger Transcript in Peterborough, NH. For over 25 years, Susie has been a contributor to the Harris Center for Conservation Education’s newsletter, The Hearsay.
