SUSAN PRICE would like to take this opportunity to answer some FAQs.
Yes, she does know a lot
of other writers, but no, she does not know J
K Rowling.
No, Susan Price is not rich.
Yes, she does own a pet, a cat named Biffo McKenna.
No, she is not going to
replace her small hatchback with a Ferrari or a
Porsche (see answers to the questions above about being rich and
knowing J K Rowling)
Yes, there will be a sequel
to The Sterkarm books and finally, yes, she
will be writing another book and will continue writing until taken away
in a box.
Susan Price was born and
raised in the Black Country, which she can speak of quite romantically. It
was where the Industrial Revolution started, she says - it was 'The Workshop
of the World.' A place of chain-making and nail-making, of brick-yards and
coal-mining. The foundry-fires reflecting off the clouds at night. It was
where the huge anchor chain for the Titanic was forged, and the Netherton
Canal Tunnel ran underneath the house where she lived as a child. The deeds
of the house forbade the family to interfere with the tunnel, and she says
she used to spend hours making plans to interfere with it.
But if truth be told, the old Black Country was a nasty, ugly, unhealthy place.
It's much cleaner and prettier now - possibly because most of the old industry
has been tidied up and placed in a museum. Susan went to school in the Black
Country, first at a small primary school a few minutes' walk from her home,
and then to a large Comprehensive which used, from time to time, to be overwhelmed
by terrible stinks from the factories all round.
She hated school, she makes no secret of that. Reading books and writing was
an escape from it. She used to become so absorbed in books that people could
speak to her and she wouldn't hear them.
'The Jungle Books' and 'The Just So Stories' by Rudyard Kipling, and Hans
Andersen's Fairy Tales were great favourites with her, and you can often find
her reading them even now.
When she was fifteen, and again when she was sixteen, she entered The Children's
Literary
Competition. On both occasions, she won a special prize of £50. This
was a great encouragement,
and she wrote her first book, THE DEVIL'S PIPER. It was accepted for publication
by Faber and Faber, when Susn was no more than sixteen. Her first professional
contract was signed by her father because, being under-age, Susan couldn't
sign it herself.
During her first years of writing, she couldn't possibly have lived on her
earnings, and she did other jobs. She worked as a shop assistant in a small
supermarket for a year - and drew on that experience for the background of
her book, STICKS AND STONES, just as HOME FROM HOME draws on her experience
of a comprehensive school. There was a job in a cake-shop which only lasted
two weeks, and an even shorter stint as a dish-washer in a hotel kitchen.
That only lasted two days.
She worked for three weeks in a retail warehouse, refilling shelves, and for
about eight weeks as a guide at the famous Black Country Museum.
But recently she's been enjoying rather more success, especially with her
book, THE STERKARM HANDSHAKE - which won The Guardian Children's Fiction Award.
And another book of hers, THE GHOST DRUM, won the Carnegie Medal In 1987.
She also writes for the very popular Point Horror and Point Fantasy series
by Scholastic. Her books have been published in America, and translated into
Japanese, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, Italian and Welsh.
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