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Sophie Pavelle is a US-born, UK-based author and science communicator. Her debut, ‘Forget Me Not: finding the forgotten species of climate-change Britain‘ (Bloomsbury, 2022) won The People’s Book Prize for Non-Fiction (2023) and was longlisted for the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing, alongside her latest read ‘To Have or To Hold: nature’s hidden relationships’ (Bloomsbury, 2025). Passionate about illuminating nature’s forgotten corners, her writings and research appear in New Scientist, National Geographic Traveller, The Guardian, the Independent, The Times Literary Supplement and Frontiers academic journal.
In what ways does nature inspire or inform your work?
It’s often the simplest things: the hush of early morning, a starry sky, the fury of a storm, the cleansing rush of rain. A nest tucked safely in the branches. The timeless strength of an ancient oak.
For me, nature is more felt than described. Ironic, perhaps, for a writer, but my truest connection to the planet has always come in the experiencing: the pulse of a trail beneath my feet, weather on my skin, the thrill of moving through landscapes that demand effort and attention.
Those moments under open sky fuel everything I hope to create. They sharpen my words, root my thoughts, and remind me that nature is not just my subject – she’s my energy, my compass, the verb in my life.
What does it mean to you to be part of a thriving ecosystem?
To be wildly, complicatedly, joyfully entangled.
