Jane Sigaloff
British author Jane Sigaloff was born in London and, despite brief trips into the countryside, is a city girl at heart. Reading and writing from a very early age, she had her first entry in the school magazine when she was five, and was given her first dictionary when she was six.
Unsure whether to focus on arts or science subjects, at sixteen she opted for the former on the basis that a lab coat and safety goggles were unflattering; although she has been known to watch ER with a certain amount of longing. Having studied history at Oxford University, she entered the allegedly glamorous world of television, initially as tea-and-coffee coordinator for Nickelodeon U.K .
As she progressed to researcher and then assistant producer, her contracts took her to MTV and finally to the BBC, where assignments included a royal wedding interview. But it was her spell as a talk-show researcher that gave Jane a keen insight into human behaviour and — coupled with the experience of growing up as part of an extended dysfunctional-but-close family — gave her a lively sense of humour about relationships.
Both were reflected in her brilliantly funny debut novel, Confessions of an Agony Aunt, described by Booklist as "an engaging romantic comedy".
Written whilst juggling a job, her life and a laptop, Jane`s second novel, Lost & Found, hit the shelves in 2004 and was praised by Publishers Weekly for its""appealing cast of characters, sprightly dialogue and comic touch."
In 2003 Jane decided to take the plunge to write full time, and having spent several summers as a serial wedding attendee and a month dog-sitting in the Caribbean, she turned her attentions to the question of marriage, and so her third novel, Technical Hitch was born.
Having refused to succumb to the stereotype of a writer living alone by not owning a cardigan or a cat, but concerned that she was talking to inanimate objects more than was healthy, Jane acquired a puppy and a man as she started work on her next novel, Like Mother, Like Daughter.
Thirty-something and child-free, she soon realised that, stretch marks and breastfeeding aside, four-legged parenthood is more similar to having a baby than she could have possibly imagined.
Like Mother, Like Daughter, an age-gap romantic comedy for the Noughties, was published in March 2006. She is keen to state for the record that she has never to her knowledge fancied the same guys as, let alone shared a boyfriend with, her mother.
Although born and bred in the UK, Jane`s surname hints at a colourful family background, with her roots somewhere in Austria, the Czech Republic and Russia.
But since the Kids from Fame and the Brat Pack days of the 1980s, Jane`s been especially enthusiastic about all things American. As a student, she spent a month pondering the meaning of life (and sales tax) on a road trip across North America, and the following year returned to work as a camp counsellor — eight weeks with five-hundred children failing to dampen her enthusiasm for the States. As an adult she tries to visit New York as regularly as she can to top-up her energy levels and to shop at Banana Republic.
The Romancipation of Maggie Hunter is her wickedly funny fifth novel.
More about this author: http://www.janesigaloff.com