About Amy Stewart
"A passionate and inquisitive writer"-- Boston Globe
"Her ease in gliding from worms to plants to humans will remind readers of John McPhee's essays on canoes, oranges, the geology of America."-- Providence Journal
Amy Stewart is the award-winning author of five books on the perils and pleasures of the natural world, including three New York Times bestsellers, Wicked Bugs, Wicked Plants and Flower Confidential.
Stewart is a highly sought-after public speaker whose spirited lectures have inspired and entertained audiences at college campuses such as Cornell and the University of Minnesota, corporate offices, including Google's Mountainview campus, conferences and garden shows, as well as botanical gardens, bookstores, and garden clubs nationwide.
She has appeared on hundreds of national and regional radio and television programs, including CBS Sunday Morning, NPR's Morning Edition, Fresh Air, and Good Morning America. She has written for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and every national garden magazine, including Fine Gardening, where she is a contributing editor.
She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the American Horticulture Society's Book Award, and a California Horticultural Society Writer's Award.
Stewart lives in Eureka, California, with her husband Scott Brown. They own an antiquarian bookstore called Eureka Books and tend a flock of unruly hens in their backyard.
She is the author of From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden, The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms, and the New York Times bestsellers Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers; Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities; and, most recently, Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon's Army and other Diabolical Insects
Recent honors and awards include:
Wicked Bugs
New York Times bestseller
National Indiebound bestseller
National traveling exhibit based on Wicked Bugs developed by Outhouse Exhibit Services
Audio book edition published by Tantor
UK edition published by Timber Press UK
Wicked Plants
New York Times bestseller
2010 American Horticultural Society Book Award Winner
Amazon.com "100 Best Books of 2009" pick, and #1 "Best Home & Garden Book of 2009"
Chosen by the Washington Post and National Public Radio as one of the best gardening books of 2009.
Wicked Plants exhibits at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Tucson Botanical Gardens, San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, and North Carolina Arboretum.
National traveling exhibit launches in 2012, created by the North Carolina Arboretum.
Featured on CBS Sunday Morning, on NPR's Morning Edition, and in a special profile in the New York Times.
Featured on TLC's "Cake Boss" October 26, 2009
International editions published in the UK, China, and Germany.
Flower Confidential
New York Times bestseller
Featured on CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, Diane Rehm and other NPR shows, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, People, and others.
Appearance in PBS documentary for Botany of Desire
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Creative Writing Fellowship, 2006.
UK edition called Gilding the Lily published 2009
The Earth Moved
California Horticultural Society's Writer's Award 2005
Discovery Channel Book Club Selection
Book translations into French, Japanese, and Korean; UK edition published by Frances Lincoln.
From the Ground Up
Barnes & Noble 'Discover Great New Authors' Program
Translations into Dutch and Japanese
Amy Stewart blogs with a group of opinionated gardeners at GardenRant and on her own at Dirt.
Stop by and check it out.
Author Photo
Download high-resolution images here.
Ordering Books
Go here to order signed copies from Amy's bookstore.
Visit IndieBound to order online or in person from an independent bookstore here.