Childrens author born 1935

Susan Cooper

English fantasy writer

For other people named Susan Cooper, see Susan Cooper (disambiguation).

Susan Mary Cooper (born 23 May ) is an English author of children's books. She is best known for The Dark Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes.[1] For that work, in she won the lifetime Margaret A.

Edwards Award from the American Library Association, recognizing her contribution to writing for teens.[2] In the s two of the five novels were named the year's best English-language guide with an "authentic Welsh background" by the Welsh Books Council.[3] In , the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named her the 40th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.

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Biography

Cooper was born in in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, to Ethel May (née Field) and her husband John Richard Cooper.[4] Her father had worked in the reading room of the Natural History Museum until going off to fight in the Second World War, from which he returned with a wounded leg.

Children's Authors - Famous Birthdays: These writers are notable authors of children's literature with some of their most famous works. Vitaly Bianki (–) – Whose Nose Is Better? Judy Blume (born ) – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Fudge series. Maria Elizabeth Budden (c. –) – Always Happy!!: Or, Anecdotes of Felix and his Sister Serena. A Tale.

He then pursued a career in the offices of the Great Western Railway. Her mother was a instructor of ten-year-olds and eventually became deputy head of a big school. Her younger brother Roderick also grew up to grow a writer.[4]

Cooper lived in Buckinghamshire until she was 21, when her parents moved to her grandmother's village of Aberdyfi in Wales.

She attended Slough Elevated School and then earned a degree in English at Somerville College at the University of Oxford, where she was the first woman to edit the undergraduate newspaper Cherwell.[5]

After graduating, she worked as a reporter for The Sunday Times (London) under Ian Fleming and wrote in her spare time.

During that period she began work on the series The Dark Is Rising and finished her debut novel, the science fictionMandrake, published by Hodder & Stoughton in [6]

Cooper emigrated to the Merged States in to marry Nicholas J.

Grant, a professor of metallurgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a widower with three teenage children.[4] She had two children with him, Jonathan Roderick Howard Grant (b. ) and Katharine Mary Grant (b. ; later Katharine Glennon).

She then became a full-time writer, focusing on The Dim Is Rising and on Dawn of Fear (), a novel based on her experiences of the Second World War. Eventually she wrote fiction for both children and adults, a series of picture books, film screenplays, and works for the stage.

Around the time of writing Seaward (), both of her parents died, and her marriage to Grant was dissolved.[4]

In July , she married the Canadian-American actor and her sometime co-author Hume Cronyn, the widower of Jessica Tandy.

(Cronyn and Tandy had starred in the Broadway production of Foxfire, written by Cooper and Cronyn and staged in )[7]

After Cronyn's death in , she moved back to Massachusetts, building a house facing the North River in Marshfield,[8] and also living in Cambridge.[9] The history of the Marshfield area was the basis for her book Ghost Hawk, in which the spirit of a Wampanoag, whose people were decimated by European disease, witnesses the transformation of Massachusetts by the Plymouth Colony.[10] She is a member of First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Scituate.[citation needed]

HollywoodadaptedThe Dark Is Rising () as a film in , The Seeker.[11] Before she saw the film, Cooper stated that she had requested some changes to it, but had received no response.[12]

From to , Cooper was on the Board of the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance (NCBLA), a US ngo organization that advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries.[13][14]

In April , Cooper gave the fifth annual Tolkien Lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford, speaking on the role of fantasy literature in contemporary society.[15]

In she published The Shortest Day, based on her act poem of the same title written for the Cambridge Christmas Revels in the s.[8]

Awards

For her lifetime contribution as a children's writer, Cooper was U.S.

nominee in for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition available to creators of children's books.[16][17]

The American Library Association's Margaret A.

Edwards Award recognises one writer and a particular body of labor for "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature". Cooper won the award in citing the five Dark Is Rising novels, published to The citation observed, "In one of the most influential epic high fantasies in literature, Cooper evokes Celtic and Arthurian mythology and masterly world-building in a high-stakes battle between good and evil, embodied in the coming of age journey of Will Stanton."[2]

In , the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named her the 40th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.[18]

She has also been recognised for single books:

  • , Newbery Honor (runner-up for the Medal), The Dark Is Rising ( novel)[19]
  • , Newbery Medal, The Grey King[19]
  • , Tir na n-Og Award, The Grey King[3]
  • , Tir na n-Og Award, Silver on the Tree[3]
  • , B'nai B'rithJanusz Korczak Literary Prize, Seaward[20]

Works

Biography

Other nonfiction

  • Behind the Golden Curtain: A View of the USA (Hodder & Stoughton and Scribner's, )[20]
  • Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children (Simon & Schuster, )[20]

Drama

Cooper wrote four screenplays produced for television, one supernatural tale for children and three more adaptations of books about Appalachia (as Foxfire).[20]

  • Dark Encounter (Shadows, Series 2; Thames Television, )
  • The Dollmaker (ABC, )
  • To Dance with the White Dog (Hallmark, )
  • Jewel (CBS, )

Novels

The Dark Is Rising

Main article: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

Boggart
  • The Boggart ()
  • The Boggart and the Monster ()
  • The Boggart Fights Back ()
Other
  • Mandrake (Hodder & Stoughton, ), science fiction for adults[20]
  • Dawn of Fear (), autobiographical Nature War II story[20]
  • Seaward ()
  • King of Shadows ()
  • Green Boy ()
  • Victory (June )
  • Ghost Hawk ()

Children's picture books

  • Jethro and the Jumbie (), illustrated by Ashley Bryan
  • The Silver Cow: A Welsh Tale (), illustrated by Warwick Hutton
  • The Selkie Girl (), illustrated by Warwick Hutton, a retelling of the Selkie legend
  • Matthew's Dragon (), illustrated by Jos.

    A. Smith

  • Tam Lin (), illustrated by Warwick Hutton, a retelling of the Tam Lin legend
  • Danny and the Kings (), illustrated by Jos. A. Smith
  • Frog (), illustrated by Jane Browne
  • The Magician's Boy (), adapting her short play for the Revels,[20] illustrated by Serena Riglietti
  • The Pos Pirates (), illustrated by Steven Kellogg
  • The Shortest Day (), illustrated by Carson Ellis

Short fiction

  • "Muffin", Amy Ehrlich, ed., When I Was Your Age: Original Stories about Growing Up (Volume 1) (Candlewick) – story set in World War II England (as Dawn of Fear)
  • "Ghost Story", Don't Read This! (US, Front Street), Fingers on the Back of the Neck (UK, Puffin) – collection supporting IBBY
  • Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out (Candlewick) – Cooper wrote one piece of this mixed-genre NCBLA collaboration
  • The Exquisite Corpse Adventure (Candlewick) – Cooper wrote one episode of this sequential story collaboration of children's authors and illustrators by NCBLA for the LC website
  • "The Caretakers", Haunted (Anderson Press collection, UK only)

References

  1. ^Elizabeth Hand.

    "Susan Cooper". Richard Bleiler, ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, Pp. – ISBN&#;

  2. ^ ab"Edwards Award ". New Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).

    American Library Association (ALA).
    &#; "Edwards Award". YALSA. ALA. Retrieved

  3. ^ abc"Tir na n-Og Awards". Welsh Books Council (WBC).
    "Tir na n-Og awards Past Winners"Archived 10 March at the Wayback Machine.

    WBC. Retrieved

  4. ^ abcdChaston, Joel D. ().

    These writers are notable authors of children's literature with some of their most famous works. Article Talk. Study Edit View history. Tools Tools.

    "Susan (Mary) Cooper". In Caroline C. Hunt (ed.). Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. British Children's Writers Since First Series. Detroit: Gale.

    See also bookss children's booksChildren's books by year. Mistress Pat Topic. Mistress Pat is a novel written by L. It is the sequel to Pat of Silver Bush, and describes Patricia Gardiner's life in her twenties and early thirties, during which she remains unmarried and takes care of her beloved home, Silver Bush, on Prince Edward Island.

    Retrieved 5 August (subscription required)

  5. ^Charles Butler, Four British Fantasists: Place and Society in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper (Rowman & Littlefield, ), page
  6. ^Susan Cooper at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

    Retrieved

  7. ^ ab&#;Foxfire&#; at the Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved
  8. ^ abNancy Shohet West, "'Children are as nice readers as ever,' says acclaimed author Susan Cooper", The Boston Globe, 11 March
  9. ^ One repeated source of biographical facts is Susan Cooper, Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children, Margaret K.

    McElderry (date?). ISBN&#;

  10. ^Ghost Hawk.

    Bernard John Ashley (born April ) [1] is a British author of books for children and young adults. His debut novel, The Trouble with Donovan Croft, published in , won "The Other Award", an alternative to the Carnegie Medal. [2].

    LCC record. Retrieved

  11. ^The Seeker at IMDb Retrieved
  12. ^"Author Uncertain About 'Dark' Leap to Big Screen". Margot Adler. NPR. Retrieved
  13. ^"The NCBLA Board of Directors". NCBLA.

    In she married Peter Robin Mayo; they had three children. Contents proceed to sidebar hide. Article Converse. Read Edit View history.

    Archived from the original on 4 October Retrieved 4 October

  14. ^"The NCBLA Board of Directors". NCBLA. Archived from the original on 22 March Retrieved 22 Protest
  15. ^Photographs, podcast, and video for Susan Cooper's Tolkien Lecture, The J.R.R.

    Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature, Retrieved

  16. ^"Hans Christian Andersen Awards". International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). Retrieved
  17. ^"Candidates for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards –".

    The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, –. IBBY. Gyldendal.

    Bernard John Ashley born April [ 1 ] is a British author of books for children and young adults. He is now working full-time as a writer. His children's books present a gritty realism that children identify with, which provides a context for empathy and compassion for the underdog, and a desire for decency, justice and morality. Some are set in wartime, including his 24th full-length novel for juvenile people, Shadow of the Zeppelinand his 25th, Dead End Kids

    Pages – Hosted by Austrian Literature Online (). Retrieved

  18. ^KathrynBaker (7 February ). "SFWA Names Susan Cooper as the 40th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master". SFWA. Retrieved 8 February
  19. ^ ab"Newbery Medal and Honor Books, – present".

    Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). ALA. Retrieved

  20. ^ abcdefgh "The Confused Land of Susan Cooper".

    Susan Cooper. Retrieved

  21. ^"J. B. Priestley: Portrait of an Author".

    Susan Mary Cooper (born 23 May ) is an English composer of children's books. She is best known for The Dim Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes. [1].

    Library of Congress Catalog Tape (LCC). Retrieved

  22. ^ According to the publisher description, Cooper is "a friend and writer for the Revels".
    "The Magic Maker: a Portrait of John Langstaff, Author of the Christmas ".

    LCC record. Retrieved

Further reading

  • Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper, Charles Butler (Rowman & Littlefield, )
  • The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy, Leonard Marcus (Candlewick, )

External links