Susan Price was born near Birmingham in the British Midlands in 1955, where she still lives today. She has been an avid reader since childhood. Books helped her to forget the monotony of everyday school life. She began writing at an early age and often entertained her younger siblings with her stories. When she was 15 and 16, she took part in the Children’s Literary Competition and won the £50 special prize on both occasions. Motivated by these successes, she started working on her first book, ‘The Devil’s Piper’, which was published in 1973. Since she was initially unable to live from her writing, she held various jobs. Price worked in a bakery and washed dishes. She wrote about her experiences while employed in a supermarket in her book ‘Sticks and Stones’ (1976). The author also taught creative writing.
Price has published more than 30 novels. In one of them, ‘The Sterkarm Handshake’, she confronts 16th century residents from the Borders (between southern Scotland and England) with 21st century scientists, who travel through history in a time tunnel and want to commercialize the untouched natural landscape. ‘The Sterkarm Handshake’ (1998) won the Guardian Fiction Award (1999). Her novel ‘The Ghost Drum’ received the Carnegie Medal (1987).
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