Susan Cooper

Children's Author

Meet Newbery winner Susan Cooper (The Dark Is Rising series) whose work weaves rich language and contemporary issues with fantasy, history, and traditional literature to create compelling, timeless picture books and young adult novels. In our interview, Cooper talks about becoming a writer as a young child, her early years as a journalist, her lifelong fascination with myths and legends, and where she believes the imagination lives.

Susan Cooper was born into a reading family.

As a young child, Cooper wrote plays for a friend’s puppet theater as well as writing for the school magazine.

Cooper started writing for newspapers right after Oxford.

At 27, Cooper abruptly left England to marry an American with three teenage children. Homesickness inspired her to write about the experience of living in the U.S. and an autobiographical book about growing up in England during World War II.

Cooper’s first published book, Over Sea, Under Stone, started out as an adventure story but took a left turn when Cooper realized that what she really wanted to write was fantasy.

Cooper wrote down the last half page of the very last book in the Dark Is Rising series and then put it away. 

Cooper brings to life many of the places she visited and lived in as a child in England.

There’s a little room in your head which has a door with no handle. It is fed by everything you remember about what you have thought, done, everybody you’ve met, everything you’ve read.

The secret to getting kids to write is to startle them into thinking outside the box.

When Cooper writes for very young children, she often has a specific audience in mind, like her own children or grandchildren.

Cooper talks about her role on the board of the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance (NCBLA), detailing the important work NCBLA does in promoting books, libraries, and literacy.

Cooper loves writing plays, lyrics, and program and record notes for the Revels, a community event that celebrates seasonal rituals through song and theater.

Cooper talks about the difference between the solitary process of writing a book and the communal effort needed to write a play.

Susan Cooper wishes Reading Rockets a very happy birthday.

Biography

Susan Cooper has been writing professionally for more than 30 years, across many genres — newspaper articles, books for children and adults, screenplays for television and film, and a Broadway play.

Born in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England in May 1935, Susan Cooper attended Oxford University where she read (studied) English. During her time at Oxford she was the first woman ever to edit the University newspaper, Cherwell. Right after graduation, she began work as a reporter at The Sunday Times in London (her first boss was Ian Fleming) and later became a feature writer.

Her first books were written during this period, after work and at weekends. In response to a publishing house competition for a children’s adventure story, she wrote what was to become her first book in her beloved The Dark Is Rising fantasy series, Over Sea, Under Stone. In this novel, readers get the first insights into the battle between the Dark and the Light and the introduction to the Arthurian and Celtic myths and legends that are central to the series.

In 1963 Susan left England to marry an American, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and went to live in the USA. She continued to write — nonfiction for adults and young adults — as well as the remaining books in the five-part series. One of the books in the series, The Grey King, won the Newbery Medal in 1976.

After completion of The Dark Is Rising series, Cooper began to work in the theater, beginning by writing scripts for the annual Christmas Revels directed by John Langstaff. Several short plays, and her poem The Shortest Day, are still performed in Revels productions throughout the USA. Her first major play, Foxfire, was written in collaboration with the Canadian actor Hume Cronyn, who became her second husband. She also began writing award-winning television screenplays, including The Dollmaker, Foxfire, and To Dance With the White Dog.

Since the 1980’s Cooper has continued writing children’s books that explore fantasy, myth, legend, time travel, and traditional folktales. Cooper now lives on an island in a salt marsh in Massachusetts, very close to her children and grandchildren.

Books by this author

Boggart

Boggart

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
9-12
Genre:
Fiction, Fairytales, Folk Tales, and Tall Tales, Myths and Legends, Fantasy
Dawn of Fear

Dawn of Fear

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
9-12
Genre:
Fiction, Historical Fiction
King of the Shadows

King of the Shadows

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
9-12
Genre:
Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy
Magician's Boy

Magician’s Boy

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
6-9
Genre:
Fiction, Fantasy
Over Sea, Under Stone

Over Sea, Under Stone

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
9-12
Genre:
Fiction, Fairytales, Folk Tales, and Tall Tales, Myths and Legends
The Dark Is Rising Sequence

The Dark Is Rising Sequence

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
9-12
Genre:
Fiction, Fantasy, Myths and Legends
The Shortest Day

The Shortest Day

Susan Cooper
Illustrator:
Carson Ellis
Age Level:
6-9
Genre:
Fairytales, Folk Tales, and Tall Tales, Myths and Legends
The Silver Cow: A Welsh Tale

The Silver Cow: A Welsh Tale

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
6-9
Genre:
Fiction, Myths and Legends
The Word Pirates

The Word Pirates

Susan Cooper
Illustrator:
Steven Kellogg
Age Level:
3-6
Genre:
Fiction, Fantasy
Victory

Victory

Susan Cooper
Age Level:
9-12
Genre:
Fiction, Historical Fiction

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