Angela Jeffs
Even as a small child, Angela Jeffs felt torn between wanting to act, paint and write. The only answer, she decided, was to do all three, and at some stage, weave them all together. Born in Worcestershire, England, but growing up in William Shakespeare's neighboring county of Warwickshire, Angela studied drama and Laban dance, with art as a second subject at Bretton Hall in Yorkshire. She acted professionally, and also taught English, drama and movement at secondary school level. With two small children to support she changed tack and entered publishing in the mid-1960s. She went freelance in 1973 and worked as a Managing Editor responsible for hundreds of titles. In the early 1980s she and a partner packaged original books for publishers under the name Overall Publications.
In 1986, Angela came to Japan for a holiday. Eighteen years later.....She has written profiles, travel features and travel guides, and articles on subjects as diverse as women's rights and international gold markets. She was the correspondent in Japan from 1989-96 for Asia Magazine, published in Hong Kong. Today she has two regular columns (PEOPLE, LIFELINES) in The Japan Times. In 1998 she was commissioned by the Times Group in Singapore to contribute to a series of books about capitals of the world. Insider's Tokyo, illustrated with her own photographs, was published in late 2001. She is now completing a book about ancestral links with South America and recently returned to painting. As to the acting, well, is not teaching a large part about commanding your audience and holding its interest? "The inter-weaving," she says, "continues." Angela founded the Creating Writing program at RBR with her signature course, Drawing on the Writer Within, Level I, II and III.
