Jane was born in London, in 1947 and at 5 weeks, was adopted into a family with a German Jewish father, a British mother, and a seven year old son. Two years later, they emigrated to Zimbabwe. When she was 18 she left home and moved to Johannesburg in South Africa. She met Rob in Johannesburg, they married in Oxford, returned to South Africa, and ten years later, in 1980, they emigrated with their family to Sydney Australia.
She graduated as a Social Worker (B.A. (Social Work) at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and worked for 30 years as a social worker/counsellor in South Africa, Australia and London, UK. While she had young children, she obtained a teaching qualification (Grad. Dip in Adult Education, University of Technology, in Sydney), and taught adults part time for a few years in TAFE in Sydney.
In 2005, she met her biological half-brother for the first time at Canary Wharf, and stopped working to explore her family history. Flooded with information, and as a way of making sense of everything, she began to write. As layer upon layer of family history emerged, she was often asked ‘why don’t you write a book?’ and Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs is the result. A serendipitous outcome in her search for identity emerged in 2008 when she began to draw and paint.
Writing has always been an important part of Jane’s life. A number of her articles have been published in professional social work journals, and she has presented them at conferences. Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs is her first book. The book was the winner in the Autobiography/Biography category in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards (left Jane Eales middle)).
She is happy to participate in radio interviews, speak to community groups, at libraries, and bookclubs, and at book festivals. She was recently interviewed about her book by Lish Fejer on 666ABC Radio Canberra. The full 10-minute interview can be heard here.
Jane and her husband live in Sydney.
Website and social media: www.middleharbourpress.com and
www.janeeales.com (showing her paintings)
Facebook? Jane Eales
Twitter? @jane_eales
Bibliography:
For Jane, an Australian debut author, Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs is her first book
Links to paperback booksellers:
Amazon.co.uk Waterstones Paperback Booktopia.com.au Book Depository
Links to eBooks:
Amazon.co.uk eBook Foyles Kobo eBook
Awards: Winner of the Autobiography/Biography category in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
Synopses of book:
Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs:
Unravelling mysterious family connections behind a secret adoption
A simple request for her birth certificate leads Jane, aged 19, to a devastating secret: she is adopted. Stunned, Jane is sworn to secrecy and forbidden to search for her biological family - a promise she honours until the death of her adoptive parents.
A heart-wrenching family crisis and a longing to know her origins then drive Jane to painstakingly research her roots in Rhodesia, Johannesburg, London, Berlin and Sydney.
Who were her biological parents, and why had she been adopted? And who imposed the conditions for her adoption and why?
Almost forty years after finding out about her adoption, Jane is welcomed warmly into her biological mother's family in London. Astonished, Jane is told her talented, complex and attractive mother was a British spy sent to Arnhem in the Netherlands just prior to the 'Market Garden' airborne invasion during WWII. And while exploring the connections between her own life with that of her mother’s extraordinary life story, serendipity and chance take over.
Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs interweaves the raw emotion of adoptee discovery, the heart-pounding threads of WWII espionage at Arnhem, and the author's poignant search for truth and identity.
Pitch to Publishers & Festival Organisers:
I love to network, and would welcome the opportunity to participate in panel discussions, workshops, and storytelling, read extracts and answer questions. I would be happy to be included in meet’n’greet sessions, radio interviews and discussions etc. I have been giving talks about my book and its genesis to community groups. As previously referred to in the Author’s biography, I recently participated in a 10 minute radio interview about Secrets, Spies and Spotted Dogs with Lish Fejer at 666ABC Radio Canberra which can be listened to here.
My book would appeal to any reader interested in issues relating to family history, family relationships and adoption, World War Two history, Foyles War, memoirs, authobiographies and biographies, and the use of writing as a way of clarifying, reframing and perhaps resolving difficult personal challenges.
Some workshop themes that would work well with my memoir are:
For example, tracing my biological mother’s career as a breeder of Dalmatians (1938 – 1958) led to a number of adventures and insights. Another example includes searching for my mother’s surname at the back of World War Two history books led to the story about her husband being the Army’s pigeon expert and being the subject of much concern and discussion among the heads of a number of British secret services in 1942.
This would appeal to all those interested in WWII history research, and those motivated to pursue their own family histories.
This subject always generates debate and interest. My story is most unusual – particularly because my birth parents wanted to make sure I never found them, and because my mother was a spy, and used to very selectively drop names of her friends and colleagues, like Daphne du Maurier, Iain MacLeod, etc.
Every character in my memoir was affected in some way by World War Two.
Of interest to all writers.
Website address: www.middleharbourpress.com
Blog: http://middleharbourpress.com/secrets-spies-and-spotted-dogs/
Check Jane's book ou at Goodreads
Contact email eales.[jane]@gmail.com or middleharbourpress@[bigpond]com(remove brackets before emailing)
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