Susan Zwinger

Susan Zwinger graduated with honors from Cornell College in 1969 in Art and English, completed her Masters at the Writer’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1971, and her PhD in Art Education from the Pennsylvania State University in 1974.

She has combined her interest in the natural world, her skills in teaching, and her talent as both a writer and an artist, in professional work and as a dedicated volunteer. Professionally she has worked for the National Park Service as Public Information Officer for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill at Kenai Fjord national Park, and at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve as a naturalist ranger. her teaching experience ranges from elementary school to an independent high school to Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Wichita State University and Colorado College. Her museum experience is both volunteer and professional; as a volunteer she served as a docent and workshop coordinator in multi-disciplinary approaches, and as a professional she curated contemporary art for the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. In addition, she has written widely as an art critic for arts sections of newspapers and various arts magazines.

She is the author of three previous books, Still Wild, Always Wild; Women in Wilderness, co-authored with her mother, Ann Haymond Zwinger; and Stalking the Ice Dragon, winner of the 1992 Governor’s Author’s Award in Washington State. She has also contributed many stories, poems, and articles to magazines and anthologies. She lives on an island in Puget Sound.