Literary Birthday – 23 May – Susan Cooper

Happy Birthday, Susan Cooper, born on 23 May 1935.

Susan Cooper Quotes

1. Poets find truth by writing about what they love.
2. I can still feel what it was like to be that child of the 1940s from inside; I am still the same mixture of insecurity and determination, shyness and arrogance, curiosity and fear. I have the same talent she had; the same imagination. I write for her, for that child, and so it is true when I say I write for myself.
3. When we are children, we have a tranquil acceptance of mystery which is driven out of us later on, by curiosity and education and experience. But it is possible to find one’s way back… Children are not different animals. They are us, not yet wearing our heavy jacket of time.
4. The truth is that every book we read, like every person we meet, has the capacity to change our lives. And though we can be sure our children will meet people, we must, must create, these days, their chance to meet books.
5. Engage, Enlighten, Encourage and especially…just be yourself! Social media is a community effort, everyone is an asset.

Susan Cooper is an English-born American author of children’s books. She is best known for The Dark Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes. The classic five-book sequence won a Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honor Award, and two Carnegie Honor Awards. In 2012 she won the lifetime Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association, recognising her contribution to writing for teens. In 2024, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named her the 40th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.

Source for photograph: slowking, GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Susan_cooper_8313.JPG

by Amanda Patterson

Please click here for our Literary Birthday Calendar

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