Maria Hodkins • Writer • Artist • Naturalist • Teacher
Maria Hodkins teaches illustrated journaling, creative non-fiction writing, and bookbinding. A professional free-lance journalist of 35 years, Maria authored Guide to Getting Trees Planted, and The Storyteller: Guide to Writing Your Life’s Stories. Many of her feature articles have been published in national and local magazines, including The Herb Companion and Art Revue. She has written interpretive and educational materials, trail guides, and newsletters. Through her business, WindWord Writing Services, she writes, designs, and illustrates everything from brochures to books.Maria is a former naturalist for Colorado State Parks, a multi-media artist, bookbinder, and poet. She has taught field/nature journaling programs and workshops for Colorado State Parks, schools, college environmental studies classes, botanical gardens, interpretive organizations, art centers, and private groups.
Maria has studied at the Yellowstone Institute, the Teton Science School, the National Association of Interpretation (NAI), and from the best instructors of all–rock, water, wind, wildlife, and nature in all its beautiful forms. Her heart soars with the winds and roams ecstatically in the colors of sunsets. Visual Journaling is Maria’s meditative practice and passion, her way of celebrating the ordinary miracles of life, and her journals accompany her everywhere.
Past teaching locations include:
- Lamar Buffalo Ranch, Yellowstone National Park, WY
- Pecos River Valley, New Mexico
- Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver, CO
- Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, Aspen, CO
- Delta Montrose Technical College, Delta, CO
- Caribou Ranch, Nederland, CO
- Kinard Middle School, Fort Collins, CO
- Spring Creek Garden Center, Fort Collins, CO
- Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction, CO
Maria teaches an easy, basic approach to capturing the essence of a subject in a journal, comfortable even to beginners.
“To enter into a conversation with nature is to explore beauty and mystery of ancient origins, revealed in the complexity of a leaf, the exquisiteness of a flower, the pattern of ridges in a landscape. Within these simple observations and recordings lies a quiet power, a sturdy harbor of wildness, and a true connection with the magic of life. " –Maria Hodkins