Michelle Cooper grew up partly in Fiji and partly in country New South Wales. She has worked as a speech pathologist specialising in learning disabilities and reluctant readers. An early draft of her first novel The Rage of Sheep won a mentorship with the Children's Book Council of Australia, resulting in Cooper revising the novel with the assistance of young adult author Alyssa Brugman.
In 2018, her Dr Huxley's Bequest: A History of Medicine in Thirteen Objects was shortlisted for the Young People's History Prize at the NSW Premier's History Awards.