JANE WELCH : BIOGRAPHY
Born in Derbyshire in 1964, Jane Welch was educated at Repton Prep School in
Derbyshire and three separate public schools at a time when each was making the
awkward transition from boys only establishments to co-ed schools.
While happily playing the role of ‘angry young woman’, she revolted
against the public schools’ Oxbridge system and immediately after leaving
school married Richard, a ‘rebel without a cause’ whom she had disastrously
embraced at her first public school.
After working in Heffers Booksellers for a short while and running her own
small business, she pulled Richard out of publishing and together they spent
five winters teaching skiing in Soldeu, Andorra in the Pyrenees. Summers were
spent less idyllically labouring in circumstances that would have been familiar
to Tess of the Durbervilles, giving the impetus to achieve her childhood dream
of writing. She completed her first novel, The Runes of War whilst in
Andorra but after HarperCollins made an offer for that and the rest of the Runespell
Trilogy writing took over.
The Runes of War was published in Dec 1995, The Lost Runes in
October 1996 and The Runes of Sorcery in May 1997. Her second trilogy, The Book of Önd,
was published from 1998 to 2000. Her latest trilogy, The Book
of Man, is currently being produced. The first book, Dawn
of a Dark Age was published in July 2001; the second book,
The Broken Chalice will be published in April 2002 and she is
currently writing the concluding book in the series called The
Allegiance of Man.
She is just completing the last in this trilogy and has recently written a
short story Out Of Avalon for her German publisher Droemer to feature in Out
of Avalon, an Arthurian anthology with Terry Pratchet, Marion Zimmer Bradley
and others.
She lives in Somerset with Richard and their two small and very much adored
children, Harriet and George.
Favourite image: Walking, talking, planning, dreaming.
