THE former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis has secured a five-figure book deal after submitting her debut novel to publishers under a pseudonym.
Ellis, who appeared on the BBC children’s programme for four years during the 1980s, had always yearned to write a novel. Early last year she attended a writing course run by the literary agent Curtis Brown, whose authors include Jilly Cooper and Anthony Horowitz.
During the course Ellis — the mother of the singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor and the drummer Jackson Ellis-Leach — wrote the first 10,000 words of a gothic novel set in the mid-18th century.
She later finished the book, entitled The Butcher’s Hook, and Gordon Wise, an agent with Curtis Brown, sent it to several publishers using the name Jo Winter, who was one of Ellis’s grandmothers. A bidding war between three publishers followed. It was won by John Murray, a company founded in 1768 whose writers have included Jane Austen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
“The writing course came just at the right time when I was ready to listen and to learn to distinguish between criticism and correction,” said Ellis, 59, who was a judge on the Costa New Novel prize in 2012.
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“I was also more ready to deal with the mechanics as well as the inspiration of the craft.”
Her novel, to be published next year, tells the story of Ann, a 19-year-old abuse victim who develops an obsession for a butcher’s boy which leads to violence.
“I liked the idea of setting it in Georgian London and it being told through the viewpoint of a 19-year-old girl,” said Ellis, who will write a second novel as part of her contract.
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“I was fascinated that people have always loved, suffered, laughed and cried as we do but their influences and experiences were vastly different in times gone by.
“It was also liberating for me to slide under my character’s skin and see how far she and I could go. This might not be the story which people who know me or have seen me [on television] would expect me to tell.”
Before joining Blue Peter, Ellis presented Jigsaw, another BBC children’s programme. More recently she has appeared on The Wright Stuff on Channel 5 and presented factual programmes including HouseBusters on Channel 5 and The Great Garden Challenge for Channel 4.