Mary Cooper

Mary Cooper is an award-winning writer whose work embraces theatre, radio, television, film, digital narratives and podcasts. She has written more than thirty commissioned stage plays for theatre companies throughout England and Wales. For BBC Radio Four she has written single dramas, adaptations and drama series. These include a ten-part adaptation of the early diaries of Anne Lister, Such Sweet Possession (2001), a musical adaptation of Miss Nobody by Ethel Carnie (2022), Lines in the Sand, a biographical drama about explorer, linguist and diplomat, 

Gertrude Bell (2023) and Bat Girls (2024) – written with Kamal Kaan – about a South Asian girls’ cricket team. Her single drama Edith Sitwell in Scarborough, written for Glenda Jackson, was nominated for the Tinniswood award 2020. For screen, her work has been broadcast on Channel Four and shown as part of the Yorkshire Television New Voices series. Her short film Missing Out won the IVCA Award for Best Drama 2010. Mary started her writing life as a newspaper journalist and still bases most of her work on in-depth research, interviews and unexplored histories. 

Alongside scriptwriting, Mary has originated and been commissioned to run writing projects in a wide variety of community settings — including libraries, prisons, museums, galleries and schools. She has taught creative writing at universities in Leeds, Huddersfield and Bolton as well as running short courses for Arvon and Maddingley Hall, Cambridge. 

She lives in Leeds and has two sons who tell her they should now be described as adult.