Janni was born in Cyprus, where her father was stationed with the RAF, but her entire life seems to have been a journey north - first back to the Lancashire mill towns of her family's origins, and now on to the very remote borders of England and Scotland. She is even married to a man called North! Perhaps she'll end up in the Arctic Circle. It is the north, its peoples and places, which is reflected in her writing and is the source of her inspiration. There is something about the rugged beauty of the northern uplands, and the often harsh lives that have been led there, that affects her deeply.
She is a slow writer. She often works very late at night when the cottage is silent. Sometimes she feels that she is not making up the story she is working on but listening, quietly; listening for it to be told to her. When she wrote Martin Farrell, she felt exactly as if she was taking a dictation from a ghost. She still gets goose pimples when she reads it.
