User:Doncram/sandboxJayneJaso

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Jayne Joso, British novelist, playwright, writer, artist. Having lived and worked in Japan, China, and Kenya, she now lives in the UK.

Her first novel Soothing Music for Stray Cats was published in 2009. The Times Literary Supplement projected that it ‘may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels’. Social historian Joe Moran heralded it as ‘the debut of a distinctive voice in contemporary British fiction’, and Natalie Haynes, author and BBC2 The Review Show panelist, described it as ‘an unexpected and moving story about the redemption of misfits and the consolation of strangers’. Alongside commissions for fictional accounts of architectural space, she has written for publications such as Architecture Today magazine and German publisher, Prestel Art. Her non-fiction work also includes ghostwriting on architecture. Joso is the subject of several works of art by Japanese sculptor, Hiroki Godengi, and others by British artist Zoe Schieppati-Emery who created a series of nude works using a complex process of liquid light both on glass and paper.

In 2010 Joso's first novel Soothing Music for Stray Cats was shortlisted for the People’s Book Prize (founding patron Dame Beryl Bainbridge). Her second novel Perfect Architect was published in 2011. In 2012 she was awarded The Coracle, Ireland, International Writer's Residency - A Sense of Place - Wexford, Ireland. In March 2015 an early version of the opening to her third novel My Falling Down House was published in NWR magazine. My Falling Down House finally published in 2016, and recipient of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Award - given to a work of fiction or non-fiction that helps to interpret modern Japan. In 2016 Joso gained the support of Arts Council England in the form of funding the time to write her fourth novel From Seven to the Sea.

Education
From the age of seven Joso found school life and lessons lacked interest. Fascinated by nature and people and particularly, the sea, she began to truant at this very young age, keeping herself busy with her own projects and adventures. Continuing to truant into secondary school resulted in other complicated issues. A compromise was finally reached when a local Girls' Convent School agreed that she could attend the classes she wished to, allowing her to spend the rest of her school day studying in the school library. She was the only non-Catholic pupil, but seemed to enjoy something of the school's discipline imposed by the nuns, finding that order helped study. She did, however, remain a challenge to authority and convention. She later settled to formal education, carefully choosing to study English Literature at Liverpool John Moores University which, at the time, was the only University in the UK offering entire courses in Literary Theory. There she gained her BA in Literature, Life and Thought. She also studied for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Diploma in Acting, LGSM; and for her MA in Playwriting at the University of Birmingham under David Edgar (playwright). She taught herself to speak Japanese, aided by a process of deep cultural immersion in the traditional mountain life of northern Japan where she lived during her twenties; and later living in Tokyo. In China, Joso studied Mandarin at Beijing University citing this is a phenomenal challenge at which she largely failed.

Novels
Soothing Music for Stray Cats (2009) - set almost entirely in London during the recession, the novel explores the lives of disaffected city dwellers and delves into the disconnectedness of modern life. An early review in Planet Magazine, issue 95, described it as being "reminiscent of Holden Caulfield's voice in J.D.Salinger's Catcher in the Rye". The Times Literary Supplement felt that it "may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels"; and social historian Joe Moran heralded it as "the debut of a distinctive voice in contemporary British fiction". It is now heavily cited in Green’s Dictionary of Slang (2010) by the English-speaking world’s leading lexicographer of slang Jonathon Green.

Perfect Architect (2011) draws on Joso's fascination for architecture and the idea of the ideal dwelling place. The Times Literary Supplement described it as a work “Full of originality"; and Publishers Weekly, New York, wrote "Joso maintains a fine balance between the intellectual and the emotional". In ICON Magazine (issue 099, 2011) a full page discussion was offered by Agata Pyzik "Joso uses all the devices of modern fiction to render the elusiveness of designing... the name of Coover – recalling the American postmodern writer Robert Coover, who specialises in elaborate parodies and disrupting myths – is perhaps revealing... There are echoes of a Thomas Mann-style Künstlerroman – charting an apprentice’s growth to maturity... an illuminating read".

Plays
China’s Smile commissioned in celebration of China’s Children’s Day (1 June) was performed at the Ye Fu Theatre Zhejiang, China; and was later televised.

Short Stories
Purple Beach - first published online by 3:AM Magazine, 2012

To the Lighthouse - first published in print by NWR magazine, Autumn 2012 issue #97 (inspired by the work of Virginia Woolf)

Tokyo Spaces - commissioned for 100th Anniversary edition of NWR magazine, published in print, Summer 2013 issue #100

Fox Man - first published in print by NWR magazine, Autumn 2014 issue #105

Children's Books
How do you Feel? commissioned and published by Benesse, Japan.

Poetry
Desire - first published by Abe's Penny, New York (2010), and acquired as part of archive by New York's Museum of Modern Art - MoMA Library for its permanent collection in 2013; Brooklyn Museum Library added the work to its permanent collection in 2014.

Awards and Honours
Arts Council England Funding Award for From Seven to the Sea

Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Award for My Falling Down House

International Writer in Residence - The Coracle - Wexford, Ireland, 2012.