AS a youngster Jo Harthan always dreamed of becoming a writer.
Fulfilling her ambition may have taken longer than Jo, holder of a first-class honours degree in biology, imagined.
But after publishing her first book – Working the Nightshift – in 2005, she is now a full-time author and a leading authority on dreams and their interpretation.
Lockdown has been a particularly prolific period for Greenfield-based Jo who brought out four books, including her first three novels.
Saddleworth is the backdrop for her supernatural crime thriller Reaper of Souls, inspired by a ghost hunting trip to Standedge Tunnel.
“I have been writing all my life and working with dreams has been a semi-professional hobby since I went to university in 1991,” says Jo, a divorced mum of two.
“Most of my inspiration for my writing, and my life for that matter, comes from my dreams.
“But after finishing my PhD in chemistry I was offered a lectureship at the University of Nottingham and my writing was put on hold.”
However, in 2011 Jo made the decision to take early retirement and write full-time.
“It is what I had always wanted to do since I was a small child. Since then I have published another 17!
“I published four during lockdown in 2020 because there was nothing else to do,” laughed Jo, notably prolific each November during the globally linked National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
Reaper of Souls, Vital Organs and Daisy Grave were the triumvirate of novels.
A keen walker, Jo also produced a compilation of her earlier Twisted Tales series about the South West Coast Path. She is presently working on another walking offering, chronicling a solo trip round New Zealand.
“I have been astounded by my book sales, if I am honest,” said Jo. “My fiction doesn’t sell over well because I am not known and I don’t do any marketing.
“But my dream interpretation books sell really well. Working with Dreams is a handbook of 30 different techniques you can use to explore dreams and it is a recommended book at Atlantic University in West Virginia.
“I am quite well known in the global dreaming fraternity,” she added proudly.
“I now have about 30 years of recorded dreams, I keep telling myself I must stop but it has become an obsession with me now. I am too frightened of missing something.”
All Jo’s works are available as hard copies or ebooks through Amazon via www.amazon.co.uk/Joan-Harthan/e/B006XXVJ3K%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
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