Meredith Hooper is a leading writer of non-fiction, with some 75 titles published internationally both for the children’s market and the wider adult market. Her book The Longest Winter — Scott’s other heroes (John Murray, hardback 2010, paperback 2011), celebrates the centenary of Scott’s expedition to the Antarctic. The Ferocious Summer — Palmer’s Penguins and The Warming of Antarctica (Profile Books, hb 2007, pb 2008; Greystone Books, North America, 2008) won the 2008 Nettie Palmer Prize for non-fiction at the Victorian Premier’s Awards.
Meredith is a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge. She is a trustee of, and on the Editorial Board of, The Round Table - The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs. She is a UK Trustee of the International Polar Foundation and a Trustee of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust.
Over the last fifteen years she has focused on writing and lecturing about the polar regions, in particular Antarctica: the exploration of the continent, its wildlife, and status. She has been selected to work in Antarctica as a writer in 1994, 1998–99 and 2001–02 with the Australian and then American Government’s artists and writers programmes, and as a guest of the Royal Navy. In 2000 she was awarded the Antarctic Service Medal by the National Science Foundation on behalf of the US Congress.
She was born and brought up in Adelaide, South Australia, graduated from the University of Adelaide with a First Class Honours degree in History and then completed her B. Phil. at Nuffield College, Oxford.
Meredith has published prolifically, both fiction and non-fiction, on Antarctica and beyond for younger and older readers. She is also a broadcaster and regularly lends her expertise to exhibitions, such as Scott’s Terra Nova (Sydney, London and Christchurch), and films as a consultant. Meredith’s radio drama Kathleen and Con (starring Sam West and Emilia Fox) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2013, timed with the arrival of the news of Captain Scott’s death reaching the world.
Her play commissioned by BBC Radio 4 on Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, will be broadcast as part of the Shackleton centenary celebrations.
Meredith Hooper continues to be an ambassador for all things Antarctic since her 94/95 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship. “The Scott centenary has involved me in writing articles (academic and general), broadcasting, lecturing at literary festivals and polar conferences, during 2012–13. Highlights include speaking at the first seminar on Scott’s expedition at the Fram Museum, Oslo; panellist on BBC R4 Antarctic programme broadcast from the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace; being one of five ‘Antarcticans', writing and speaking on The Essay, BBC Radio 3. My radio drama ‘Kathleen and Con’ was broadcast on BBC R4 in February 2013). I was a delegate to a Canada/UK conference on polar issues in Iqaluit, Canadian Nunavut”.
Meredith continues to act as a trustee for the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, and a UK trustee for the Belgian based International Polar Foundation.