Jan Fearnley
As a child
Jan grew up in a town called South Shields, on Tyneside. She loved art and English. Every holiday, she was given a set of felt tips and a sketchbook to keep her out of trouble. She spent many happy hours drawing, writing stories and getting into trouble. When she was very small, she used to hide behind her mum and dad’s dressing table and cover the back of it with pencil drawings of dinosaurs and dragons. Fortunately her parents didn’t mind too much. She spent the rest of her time scraping her knees, making sandcastles and developing an unfortunate attraction to rivers, the North Sea, puddles and rock pools.
As an adult
Jan did a degree in graphic design, worked briefly in advertising (which she hated), and then taught in London. She loved working with children and helping them learn to read, but seemed to have a permanent cold – and she missed having time to draw and write. On a training day (which was a drawing workshop) at the National Gallery, one of her colleagues said, “If you can draw like that, why aren’t you doing it for a living?” Jan had a think about it and decided to give it a try. Jan now works full-time as an author/illustrator, and she likes very much to go back into schools and libraries, drawing with children and telling stories. If you meet her and she stares at you a bit too much, please don’t mind, she’s probably going to go off to draw you in her sketchbook, and maybe even put you in one of her stories.
As an artist
Jan says, “I’ve won a couple of awards and been nominated for a few. People tell me they love my work. In my books, I like to focus on the aspects of life that affect us all. The things that bothered or amused me as a child still do the same now I’m an adult. I figure I’m not alone in this. It’s important to me that my books work when read alone or shared out loud. Listening to a story read out loud is our first experience of literature, and if it’s a good story, read well, it is an intoxicating experience. And then, if the pictures convey their own narrative, a snapshot into another world, it can be magic.”
Things you didn't know about Jan Fearnley
- Jan was once thrown out of a French lesson for taking her pet rat along.
- She likes growing things to eat in her garden. Some of the plants featured in Watch Out, Wilf! were sketched from her garden, especially the dahlias.
- She loves the smell of flowers but strong perfume makes her feel sick.
- She once wasted a whole day’s work because she was too busy watching a pair of magpies make a nest in a pear tree.
- She has two weird cats that like to join in with important phone calls, especially the sort where you have to be really sensible.
- She’s quite shy, but she has a secret desire to run up and down a dark cobbled street, wearing a black cloak with red satin lining, cackling wickedly.
- She gets very cross when politicians come on the telly.
- Jan has X-ray vision. (She’s a terrible fibber too.)
- Sometimes Jan wears children’s clothes (age 14–15).
- She works in a very messy room with a sink in the corner, paper everywhere and lots of books balanced precariously over her desk.