Editing Susan Cooper (section)

== Biography ==

Cooper was born in 1935 in [[Burnham, Buckinghamshire]], to Ethel May (''née'' Field) and her husband John Richard Cooper.<ref name=chaston/> 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. He then pursued a career in the offices of the [[Great Western Railway]]. Her mother was a teacher of ten-year-olds and eventually became deputy head of a large school. Her younger brother Roderick also grew up to become a writer.<ref name=chaston/>

Cooper lived in Buckinghamshire until she was 21, when her parents moved to her grandmother's village of [[Aberdyfi]] in Wales. She attended [[Slough High School]] and then earned a degree in [[English studies|English]] at [[Somerville College]] at the [[University of Oxford]], where she was the first woman to edit the undergraduate newspaper [[Cherwell (newspaper)|''Cherwell'']].<ref>Charles Butler, [https://books.google.com/books?id=fxNyH4uE100C&pg=PA14 ''Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper''] (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), page 14.</ref>

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 fiction]] ''Mandrake'', published by [[Hodder & Stoughton]] in 1964.<ref name=isfdb/>

Cooper emigrated to the United States in 1963 to marry Nicholas J. Grant, a professor of [[metallurgy]] at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], and a widower with three teenage children.<ref name=chaston/> She had two children with him, Jonathan Roderick Howard Grant (b. 1965) and Katharine Mary Grant (b. 1966; later Katharine Glennon). She then became a full-time writer, focusing on ''The Dark Is Rising'' and on ''Dawn of Fear'' (1970), 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'' (1983), both of her parents died, and her marriage to Grant was dissolved.<ref name=chaston/>

In July 1996, 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 theatre|Broadway production]] of ''[[Foxfire (play)|Foxfire]]'', written by Cooper and Cronyn and staged in 1982.)<ref name=ibdb/>

After Cronyn's death in 2003, she moved back to Massachusetts, building a house facing the [[North River (Massachusetts Bay)|North River]] in [[Marshfield, Massachusetts|Marshfield]],<ref name=Globe>Nancy Shohet West, [https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/globelocal/2020/03/11/children-are-good-readers-ever-says-acclaimed-author-susan-cooper/jEpGJLfEzjt9ioR4zwOBtL/story.html "'Children are as good readers as ever,' says acclaimed author Susan Cooper"], ''The Boston Globe'', 11 March 2020.</ref> and also living in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]].<!--LC cites her website, October 2012--><ref name=mcelderry/> The history of the Marshfield area was the basis for her 2013 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]].<ref name="LCC2013">[http://lccn.loc.gov/2012039892 ''Ghost Hawk'']. LCC record. Retrieved 2013-02-12.</ref> She is a member of [[First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Scituate]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}

[[Hollywood (film industry)|Hollywood]] [[film adaptation|adapted]] ''The Dark Is Rising'' (1973) as a film in 2007, ''[[The Seeker (film)|The Seeker]]''.<ref name=imdb>{{IMDb title|id=0484562|title=The Seeker}} Retrieved 2012-03-25.</ref>
Before she saw the film, Cooper stated that she had requested some changes to it, but had received no response.<ref name=adler/>
 
From 2006 to 2012, Cooper was on the Board of the [[National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance]] (NCBLA), a US [[nonprofit organization]] that advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries.<ref name=ncbla-bod06>{{cite web|title=The NCBLA Board of Directors|url=http://www.thencbla.org/boarddirectors.html|website=NCBLA|access-date=2006-10-04|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004014752/http://www.thencbla.org/boarddirectors.html|archive-date=2006-10-04}}</ref><ref name=ncbla-bod12>{{cite web|title=The NCBLA Board of Directors|url=http://www.thencbla.org/boarddirectors.html|website=NCBLA|access-date=2012-03-22|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322093151/http://www.thencbla.org/boarddirectors.html|archive-date=2012-03-22}}</ref>

In April 2017, Cooper gave the fifth annual [[Tolkien Lecture]] at [[Pembroke College, Oxford]], speaking on the role of fantasy literature in contemporary society.<ref>[https://tolkienlecture.org/2017/04/30/susan-coopers-tolkien-lecture/ Photographs, podcast, and video for Susan Cooper's Tolkien Lecture], ''The J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature'', 2017-04-30. Retrieved 2017-06-20.</ref>

In 2019 she published ''The Shortest Day'', based on her performance poem of the same title written for the Cambridge Christmas ''[[Revels]]'' in the 1970s.<ref name=Globe/>