Meet Susan

Susan Edwards Richmond is the award-winning author of Night Owl Night and the community science adventures Bioblitz! Counting Critters and Bird Count. Night Owl Night is a Massachusetts Book Award Honor Title and a Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year. Susan is also the author of Science Play, an activity book for preschoolers in Storey Publishing’s Busy Little Hands series. Her third book in the “Community Science Counts” series, The Great Pollinator Count, releases April 15, 2025.

A passionate birder and naturalist, Susan teaches preschool on a farm and wildlife sanctuary in eastern Massachusetts. She earned her M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, and her B.A. with Honors in English from Williams College. She is also an award-winning poet with five collections of nature-based poetry for adults. Susan is happiest exploring natural habitats with her husband and two daughters, and learns the native birds wherever she travels.

Susan is represented by Stephen Fraser at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.

Author Q&A

When did you first know you wanted to write?

Ever since I can remember, I kept a notebook to jot down poems, stories, and songs. I love being outdoors, and my early writing was filled with stories and poems about nature. When I was in grade school, I wrote my first series of poems featuring woodland animals—a raccoon, an otter, and a fox—and stapled it together into a little booklet. I can still recite some of those lines from memory!

I was also a voracious reader, but didn’t always know I wanted to create books for other people to read. I loved Beatrix Potter and A.A. Milne, and the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson. When I was a little older, I’d go to the library and sweep up a whole shelf of horse books by Marguerite Henry or dog books by Jim Kjelgaard to bring home. Two of my favorite books were A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle and The Year of the Raccoon by Lee Kingman. I read them both every year so I could experience those intense emotions each time. I too wanted to make people feel that connection with stories and characters!   

How do you get your ideas?

From life! Stay active and curious and ideas will often just present themselves. The idea for my first book Bird Count came from my own experience participating in the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count. Because I love birds and birdwatching, it was a natural when a local birder in town asked me if I could join one of the teams in my hometown of Acton. Participating in the Christmas Bird Count led me to learn about other community science projects in my region and around the world. Those explorations inspired Bioblitz! Counting Critters and other books in the Community Science Counts series. Night Owl Night practically wrote itself after an evening I spent banding saw whet owls at the sanctuary where I work.

My poems spring out of hiking trips, family vacations, birdwatching expeditions, or simply walks in the woods with my family, where we might encounter a deer or a turtle, find wild blueberries, or hear an owl call. I also write nature-based curriculum, and my first poetry collection came out of a project about the Peruvian Amazon. When I heard the fascinating stories told about Amazon pink river dolphins, I knew I had to write a book of poems about them.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I spend as much time outdoors as possible!  I love to travel, and to hike and canoe with my husband Jim, and daughters, Elana and Sonia. Whenever I travel to a new place, one of the first things I do is learn the local wildlife! Once I recognize the bird songs and the animals I see around me, I start to settle in and feel at home. Some of my most exciting trips were inspired by my children. Our daughters’ work and travel interests have brought us to New Zealand, South Korea, Ireland, and the West Coast in recent years. I'm glad my daughters are passionate about other countries and cultures, just like Jim and I are. There are lots of opportunities for adventure close to home as well. We have a forest and vernal pool in our backyard, a National Wildlife Refuge down the street, and an organic farm next door.  And we’re always planning our next National Park adventure! 

I have the best job in the world, teaching at a nature-based preschool that is also a farm and wildlife sanctuary. I love helping my students learn to milk the cow, groom the pony, gather eggs, and grow their own food, as well as explore the ponds, forests, and fields in every season.  

Those are answers to just a few questions you might have about me. If you think of others, please feel free to contact me at susanrichmond@verizon.net.