THE ESTATE OF SUE HUBBELL

“The real masterwork that Sue Hubbell has created is her life.” — The New York Times

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1935, Sue Hubbell attended Swarthmore College and the University of Michigan before receiving her A.B. in journalism from the University of Southern California in 1956. She also earned an M.S. from Drexel Institute in 1963. She was a book store manager, an elementary school librarian, and was also employed as a librarian by Trenton State College, Trenton, NJ, and by Brown University, Providence, RI.

In 1973, Hubbell and her first husband, Paul Hubbell, both of whom were anti-war activists, made the decision to leave their positions at Brown and the University of Rhode Island and significantly reduce their incomes so they would not be contributing taxes to the war effort. For a year they and their son Brian traveled around the country before deciding to purchase land in Missouri where they became commercial beekeepers. When she and her husband divorced after 30 years of marriage, Hubbell continued the honey business alone. To supplement her income, Hubbell wrote articles for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Thirty-three of the articles were later published in ON THIS HILLTOP in 1991.

Published in 1986, COUNTRY YEAR: LIVING THE QUESTIONS brought Hubbell immediate attention from both book critics and general readers. The book, considered an American natural history classic, remains in print in a variety of editions. Hubbell was the author of seven other books, including New York Times Notable Book A BOOK OF BEES. She wrote for the New Yorker, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Smithsonian, and Time, and was a frequent contributor to the "Hers" column of the New York Times.

She died in 2018 at the age of 83 in Bar Harbor, Maine.

AUTHOR WEBSITE: SUE HUBBELL