The Devil's Music, published by Bloomsbury in July 2009, has been described as 'a beautifully told story of family secrets and betrayal, involving knots, Harry Houdini and the shifting landscape of memory'.

Jane, who has an MA in creative writing from the University of Chichester, said: "Bloomsbury and the university are hosting a free-admission event at 5.30pm on November 23 in Cloisters at the university to which everyone is welcome to come along and bring friends. The more the merrier.

"I'll be chatting to Karen Stevens, senior lecturer at the university, about the novel and the writing process. The novel will be on a sale at a special price of £10 and I will be signing copies."

Jane teaches at the university at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

She has had short stories and poems published in anthologies, and won or been placed in several national and international competitions including the Writersinc Writer of the Year award (2005), the Ilkley literature Festival competition (2005), the Bluechrome Short Story competition (2005), the Bridport (2003, 2005) the Fish Prize (2006) and the Writersinc award (2008).

Jane said: "I live in Wittering, just across the road from the sea, and my husband is a farmer whose family have farmed at Earnley for 400 years.

"I grew up just along the coast in East Sussex, and find the landscape of sweeping skies, tumultuous seas and vast stretches of sand very inspiring.

"The seascape often creeps into my writing and features prominently in The Devil's Music, which is set largely in a converted railway carriage house – like many we have in Wittering – right on the edge of the beach.

"My daughter took the beautiful photo for the novel's cover down on West Wittering beach – which is also where we found the length of rope.

"As a mature undergraduate at the University of Chichester, I won the Philip Lebrun Prize for creative writing and also the Lord Wolfendon Prize.

"Both prizes gave me a great deal of encouragement and also enough confidence to stay on and study for an MA in creative writing.

"I was running a preschool group for four-year-olds attached to East Wittering school at the time and my second husband and I have five children between us, so I chose to study both the BA and the MA part-time, which took nine years altogether.

"When I was invited to teach at the university as an associate lecturer, I swapped four-year-olds for 18 to 80-year-olds, and puzzles and play-doh for poems and prose fiction, which was a challenge, but one I hugely enjoyed. I have now been teaching at the university for ten years.

Jane added: "The Devil's Music was inspired by a case study I came across by accident in the library, by the famous child psychologist, D W Winnicott, writing in the late 50s about a little boy obsessed with string and knots.

"It took about five years to write, but then the writing process was often interrupted by life in general and work commitments."


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