Jane Metcalfe

I realise that there is an elephant in the book that has to be addressed: who is the mysterious actress? Let me explain for those coming to this with no background knowledge of the book. Things in Heaven and Earth (a more apt title for this story you will not find!) is about an extraordinary meeting  that took place between an unknown British playwright and a famous actress at a private dinner party on a sultry evening in Beverly Hills.  The meeting turned their world upside down as it did for many of those who witnessed it.  We are used to stories set in the realms of fantasy, science fiction, alien abduction and so forth, where the imagination can run riot. Yet sometimes – perhaps more often than we know – fantasy meets reality, and then, as the playwright writes, “…all kinds of strange things begin to happen.”

So to the actress. She had  a very high profile in Hollywood at that time. Because of her fame, she knew that the press would wildly misrepresent what had happened.  Those who witnessed the event, her friends and family were bound over to keep both the incident and her identity a secret. To this day her identity remains hidden. Part of the story involves how I came to be in possession of the material that makes up this book. In the telling of that I explore all the reasons why she remains anonymous, as well as my own search for her identity. There were clues, and indeed these are included in the text in a subtle kind of way. If you keep your eyes peeled,  you may be able to travel the path I trod in my attempt to uncover her identity. Do I know beyond doubt who she is? I believe so. But ultimately it is still a mystery waiting to be solved. I hope one day it will be. But for me it has always been the story of what happened between the actress and Colin, my first husband that held the greatest interest.
If you want to read the book, you will find it in both kindle and soft cover form on Amazon platforms in a number of countries.

A week ago I quietly published my book, Things in Heaven and Earth, knowing that fullscale publicity would follow on later. Life  has its own agenda and the more life-experience there is behind me, I see that taking new ventures at a steady pace is better than rushing headlong into a series of mistakes. So I am quietly (sometimes noisily!) planning the best approach for getting the book “out there”, starting with what I know and who I know, before venturing into the marketplace of a world that is unfamiliar to me. Where better to begin than by sharing my thoughts on the book; the process? I am part of the story, one of its characters, not only in the book but as a living “afterword”; a continuation of the past into the future; that which is both in time and out of time.

As I begin to get feedback about the book, questions are asked, such as: Why is the subtitle: “A story of love, mystery and transformation”? The simple answer is that it is about all three of these topics, each one being inseparable from the other. Overarchingly it is a love story that breaks the boundaries of  conventional love stories and reaches far beyond the limitations of time and description. On the face of it two strangers meet and fall instantly in love, but it turns out to be far more than that which happens to most of us at some point in our lives. Whatever our beliefs about spirit, soul, essence, life-force, there is clearly an energetic impulse that sometimes collides with another’s energetic impulse. Once this happens changes occur for the two people involved. In this instance, what happened to these two profoundly influenced not only their own lives, but those of others who came into their orbit. They seemed to radiate an energy, “like two poles of a rather strange battery” as one person describes it. Hence the mystery that, though felt, is indescribable. That it transformed the couple for the remainder of their lives is beyond question. A section of the book is devoted to interviews which demonstrate the deep insights and wisdom they both imparted long after they met. That it appears spiritual or mystical in content is more down to the questions of the interviewer, labels of which they never claimed for themselves. Whatever it was, the imprint of what happened and what they say is still acutely alive now.

So although I may have waffled a bit here, you can perhaps get a sense of the reason for the title Things in Heaven and Earth, and the subtitle: A story of love, mystery and transformation.

You may enjoy checking the book out on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Heaven-Earth-mystery-transformation/dp/1527265811

I have always written. It was my first love at school. I wrote stories and little plays for drama club, until I discovered singing. Aged 14 I was cast in the role of Mrs Noye in Benjamin Britten’s children’s opera Noye’s Fludde. Blessed with a good natural voice I fell in love with classical music from that time on. I was fortunate to become an interpreter of all that wonderful repertoire: opera, oratorio, art song, and lighter songs,  bringing life to the union of word and song  through the incredible organ that is the human voice. But later, through  having cancer, I found my writing inspiration again, expressing my joy of being alive. There is nothing like a crisis to open one up to self-expression. My first venture, back in 1990 was a collaboration with the composer Jonathan Dove, writing Three Healing Songs for a Conference on Holistic Therapies, which I sang and added to my concert repertoire. That was the beginning of my writing years….

It’s strange, but I always thought I’d learn  how to write better when I did my MA. I had taken a one year introductory course to creative writing and it had fired me up. We were encouraged by the tutors to try all sorts of styles, genres and share them not only with the tutors but with one another. We were an eclectic group with very different “voices” and writing styles. But there was an enthusiastic generosity about us as we read and critiqued each other. It was perhaps one of the most exhilarating courses I have taken! I rediscovered my love of writing poetry and started writing short stories – some (as an exercise) in the style of famous writers, which was a helpful way of getting inside the head of another’s voice- much as one does as an actor.  So I happily went off to my MA course. I found it, by comparison, to be stodgy, worthy, controlling. Still I learned a valuable lesson through that experience: there is no such thing as a right way to write. I simply learned to spot my own excesses, and became a ruthless self-editor.  Much as a classical singer learns to extend and hone their natural voice, so must a writer.  When people ask me: What did you learn from your MA? I reply: How not to write.

No experience is ever wasted – particularly for a writer!