Susan Price

Susan Price is a critically acclaimed writer of fiction for children and young adults. She has written more than 60 books, from picture-book texts to ‘cross-over’ novels read mainly by adults. Her book The Ghost Drum won the Carnegie medal in 1987, and The Sterkarm Handshake won the Guardian prize in 1997. Many of her books have been translated. None have, to date, been filmed although The Sterkarm Handshake seems to be continually under option.

Susan Price hugely enjoyed the work as RLF Fellow at De Montfort University in Leicester. She was already involved in digital publishing, and when her fellowship ended, she took over the organisation of the Authors’ Electric Collective, and their lively multi-blog Do Authors Dream of Electric Books?

Susan Price was born, and still lives, in the Black Country. She was uneducated at a large comprehensive school, which she left with few qualifications and a publishing contract with Faber, signed by her father, as she was under-age. While always writing, Susan has worked as a shelf-filler and cashier in a supermarket, washed up in a hotel kitchen, been a guide at the Black Country Museum, and taught creative writing. For 10 years she volunteered as a tutor with an adult literacy group. At 19, she had her first public-speaking gig, and since then has given talks at schools, libraries, universities and festivals all over the country, and even some foreign parts.