Sarah Jane Weldon: Biography
Sarah Jane weldon is an international bestselling cozy mystery author, YouTuber, and professional speaker. She is the founder of the #cozymysteryday and the #cozymysterybookexplorer group on Facebook. When not writing, she works on murder mystery and period dramas for Netflix, Amazon, Sky TV, HBO, and British television.
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She is the author of multiple cozy mystery series, including the Knitty Cat Mysteries, Movie Set Murders, Murder Once and Floral, and British Seaside Mysteries series. Her first book, 'Dead on Doughnuts' was written in three days, after working on the set of The Romanoffs television series for Amazon, and The ABC Murders for the BBC and realising that the books she loved were part of a named genre called 'cozy mysteries'. She founded Cozy Mystery Day on the 15th September 2019 (Agatha Christie's birthday) after realising that none of her bookish friends knew the term 'cozy mystery' either, with a view to popularising the genre and celebrating its books, movies, and television series.
Sarah reluctantly added her middle name 'Jane' to her author name after receiving a 6 figure offer to have her books used as the basis for a computer game. She delightedly accepted the offer, only to discover that she had been mixed up with another author of the same name, who wrote erotic fiction. She did offer them 'Dead on Doughnuts' but for some reason, they declined. Having never been a fan of her middle name, 'Jane' she added it so that readers wouldn't get the two authors mixed up, and having recently watched the spin off 'Dr Who' series 'The Sarah Jane Adventures', she thought she could just about live with her middle name.
In her many and varied lives, Sarah's path has crossed with an interesting mix of film and literary icons. She was born in the same maternity hospital as Titanic star Kate Winslet, 42 days later, by the same midwife. As a baby in Wallingford, she was sick on Agatha Christie during a stroll in her pram, and as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London, in later life, she has had drinks at the Explorer's Bar with the likes of Douglas Adams, Michael Palin, and Stephen Fry. Though less adventurous than she once was, Sarah's cozy mysteries often involve an element of travel and exploration (especially space), reflecting on her time as a cruise ship speaker and ice swimmer. She donates a large percentage of her royalties to the UK registered children's charity she started whilst living in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 2010. The charity (Oceans Project) continues to provide free, online, environmental and STEM education to more than 100,000 disadvantaged young people worldwide each year and funds expeditions for teens through the USA based non-profit Earthwatch. Expeditions include shark conservation in Belize, Amazon river basin research, climate change in the Canadian Arctic, archaeological work in Europe, coffee bean plantation research in Costa Rica, and coral reef and manta ray conservation in Australia. She was previously named by Microsoft Education for International Women's Day as a 'woman changing the world through technology,' for her Skype in the Classroom sessions and virtual field trips with schools. She was a guest speaker and panelist on 'The Internet of Things' alongside the inventor of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners Lee at the Southbank Centre in London and has performed standup comedy routines at events such as the British Science Festival. Her love for ice swimming and survival in extreme environments was previously filmed as part of an Ancestry DNA series for Channel 4 called 'My Family Secrets Revealed'. |
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Sarah was born in Reading, and grew up in Dorset on the south coast of England, before moving to the North West of England. She moved to London to work for the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, travelling to India, South America, Spain, and the country of Georgia to research cognitive development in infants and children. After developing Guillain-Barre following a rabies vaccination which left her paralysed, she decided to pursue a fast track career in medicine, specialising in aviation, space, environmental, and hyperbaric medicine, with mentorship from NASA. Her book 'Poisoned in Paradise' is based on a real life encounter with a NASA astronaut whilst working in Public Health Medicine on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Unlike the character in her book, there was no real life romance since the astronaut was quite old. She lives with her three black and white cats, and is dreaming of one day building her forever home in the Lake District so she can swim outside in nature every day.
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