Jan lives in Essex, England. She’s married with two grown-up children and a black cat called Holly who rules the house. The first story she wrote was called ‘Teddy goes for a swim’. It was about five lines long and she still has it. For more than twenty years she has written children’s stories with her friend, Sara Vogler. And amazingly they’re still friends. Their first story was about a smelly old lion skin rug and the second one was about garden gnomes – but the publishers didn’t want them! Then they won a short story competition and were very excited when it was read out by Michael Rosen on BBC Radio 4 on New Year’s Day 1996. Since then they’ve written over 180 stories – including Sam Silver Undercover Pirate and Spy Master.