THE WRITER WHO MOST INSPIRED SUSAN
I have been searching for other worlds since before I can remember and it’s very hard to beat stepping through a dusty wardrobe into the snowy magic of Narnia. So C.S. Lewis had my heart from an early age. But so too does Philip Pullman, who exploded the parameters for me of what a children’s book could do.
My other great love is Diana Wynne Jones, especially her Chrestomanci books. The mischievous pragmatism of magic in her books made it most real to me.
I’ve never fully recovered from Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising and she and Alan Garner gave me a love of writing that intertwined myth and landscape, past and present.
The Irish writer Patricia Lynch made me see magic in my own landscape and Pat O’Shea’s The Hounds of the Morrigan showed me that the old stories were still alive in the fields and roads all around me.
SUSAN ABOUT KATE
From the moment I first spoke to Kate, I knew I wanted to work with her. Her passion, warmth, expertise, and energy immediately struck me and I thought, here is a person who really understands me and the world I’ve created. Working with Kate is an absolute joy. She is always practical, encouraging, and reassuring.
KATE ABOUT SUSAN
Susan’s dreamlike evocation of other worlds is both beautiful and precise, her weaving of multiple myths from different cultures remarkable, and her child characters so well drawn. Two things shine brightest for me however in her writing: first, her knowledge of and passion for the landscape (and rain!) of West Cork and second, her fierce intelligence.
