Storyteller Susan Hill
Prolific British author and senior Susan Hill, celebrates her 73rd birthday today (born Feb 5 1942). Susan Hill is perhaps best known for writing the famous classic ghost story The Woman in Black, first published in 1983. It has since sold millions of copies, been adapted as a play and run continuously since 1998 in London’s West End. In 2012 it was made into a feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe (of Harry Potter fame).
Her first novel The Enclosure was published in 1961, while she was still in her first year at university and according to a 2013 interview, when she was still “a lonely teenager”. Married since 1975 to husband Stanley Wells, their 2 daughters are now grown up and have made them grandparents.
Thus far Susan Hill has written more than 55 books (children’s stories, crime & mystery with a heavy dose of gothic suspense, and out-right ghost stories), and 9 non-fiction books. Many of her stories have been adapted for stage.
Between 1968-1972 Susan Hill wrote and had published 8 more novels, winning 3 different literary awards. I’m the King of the Castle, a 1970 children’s fiction book about bullying which is required reading in some British secondary schools, won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971; The Bird of Night, an work of adult fiction about a brilliant but mentally ill poet, won the 1972 Whitbread Novel Award and was short-listed for the Booker Prize; and The Albatross, a short story collection which won the 1972 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best work of literature by a Commonwealth author age 35 or under.
Most of novelist Susan Hill’s popular and mystery/crime novels starring Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler have been written and published since she became a senior citizen herself. The books often include side themes related to the problems of ageing, assisted suicide, Parkinson’s Disease and dementia/Alzheimer’s Disease, and the impact of these illnesses on the individuals who have them and their caregivers. The Benefit of Hindsight, the tenth full-length Simon Serrailler mystery by Susan Hill was published in 2019.
Below, Susan Hill being interviewed in 2012 about The Woman in Black and ghost stories.
As a social media savvy senior, author Susan Hill has a significant Twitter following. For more information, check out her website at https://www.susanhill.org.uk/
