Susan Price
Quick Facts
Biography
Susan Price (born 8 July 1955) is an English author of children's and young adult novels. She has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize for British children's books.
Price was born in Dudley, West Midlands, and still lives in the Black Country.
Writing
Many of Susan Price's works are fantasy, from science fiction to ghost stories; some are historical novels; others are about animals or everyday life. Many of her short stories are re-tellings of tales from folklore. Her first Ghost World novel, The Ghost Drum (1987), is an original fairy tale using elements from Russian history and Russian folklore. She won the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising The Ghost Drum as the year's best children's book by a British subject.
In The Sterkarm Handshake (1998) and its sequel A Sterkarm Kiss (2003), time travel brings together a young anthropologist from 21st century Britain and a young warrior from 16th century Scotland. They become lovers and she sides with his border clan in conflict with a 21st-century corporation. For the first book, Price won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime award judged by a panel of British children's writers.
The Pagan Mars trilogy (2005–2008), also known as Odin or Mars, is set in a scientifically advanced alternative world where the pagan gods are still worshipped and slavery, called bondery, is commonplace.