Susan Zimmermann is an internationally-known writer and presenter who gives speeches and workshops on the reading comprehension strategies outlined in her educational bestsellers MOSAIC OF THOUGHT (coauthored with Ellin Keene) and 7 KEYS TO COMPREHENSION (coauthored with Chryse Hutchins). With over a half million copies sold, MOSAIC OF THOUGHT was the first book to demonstrate how to use the comprehension strategies to explicitly teach reading comprehension. Using those strategies--the 7 KEYS-- Susan’s presentations focus on how educators and parents can get children to read deeply and thoughtfully, so they become joyful, lifelong readers. She has presented hundreds of workshops throughout the United States and Canada, as well as Japan, the Philippines, Romania, and Mexico on how to deepen reading and writing experiences for adults and children. Susan co-founded and served as the first executive director of the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition, an organization that has spearheaded ground-breaking work on reading comprehension.

A lover of the wilderness and believer in the transformative power of the out-of-doors, she has been a Trustee of the Colorado Outward Bound School and served as the Board Chair of The Women’s Wilderness Institute, which provides wilderness learning experiences for adolescent girls and women. Currently a full-time writer and consultant, Susan (when not working with schools and teachers around the country) can be found backpacking in the Utah desert, climbing Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks, or rafting wilderness rivers. A graduate of Yale Law School and mother of four, she lives in the foothills west of Denver with her husband, Paul Phillips.