Michael Cooper writes historical fiction promoting coexistence—all set in the Holy Land at major historical turning points; Foxes in the Vineyard, set in 1948 Jerusalem won the 2011 Indie Publishing Contest Grand Prize and The Rabbi’s Knight, set in 1290 was a finalist for the CIBA 2014 Chaucer Award for historical fiction. Wages of Empire set at the start of WWI, won the CIBA 2022 Grand Prize for young adult fiction and, a just-published sequel, Crossroads of Empire, also set during WWI, won the CIBA 2023 Hemingway first prize for 20th century wartime historical fiction..

A native of Berkeley, California, Cooper emigrated to Israel in 1966, studying and working there for the next eleven years; he lived in Jerusalem during the last year the city was divided between Israel and Jordan, studied at Hebrew University, and graduated from Tel Aviv University Medical School. Now a pediatric cardiologist, he travels to the region twice a year on volunteer missions for Palestinian children who lack access to care. He and his wife live in Northern California with a neurotic golden retriever and a spoiled-rotten cat. Three adult children occasionally drop by.