Parallel Lives

Neil has been tapping away on his laptop every evening (and sometimes during the day) since we got back. The result is that I have a new website, here at http://www.kathleenjones.co.uk/, and I would love to have your feedback on the new look. I think he’s done a brilliant job of making me seem authentic!! That seems a strange thing to say, but I know there are other writers out there too, who feel somehow fraudulent, that they are ‘not a proper writer’ without some exterior evidence to back it up. The books, somehow, are just not enough.


Have you ever tried Googling your name? During the research for the website - Googling my name to retrieve reviews and articles - Neil discovered that I lead a large number of parallel lives. There are 2009 Kathleen (often Kathy) Jones’s living in America, and more than 200 in Britain. I’m used to my doppelganger, Professor Kathleen Jones who writes learned books on social policy and mental health. Our books end up jumbled together on book sites and in libraries. She is now very old and distinguished and an ardent opponent of Richard Dawkins - has even written a book refuting his arguments (Challenging Richard Dawkins). She and I couldn’t be further apart in matters of belief, yet I get many emails from her fans thinking that we are the same person.



Great fun to find that one of the ‘other’ Kathleen Jones’s is a porn star (pictures too rude to show), also known as Granny Jones specialising in gerontophilia - the perversion of fancying elderly ladies. If ever the book trade fails perhaps there’s an alternative career idea! Kathleen Jones is also an animal medium, putting bereaved owners in touch with their pets, also hosts the Kathleen Jones Show in Oregon, is a White Witch practising New Age magic with the Church of the Ancient Ways in Maryland, (see pic) 

and an African/American Baptist Pastor in Philadelphia. The ubiquitous KJ was a ballerina in 1968, but is now a Principal clarinettist with the orchestra of Puerto Rica.

One of my favourites is an American Kathleen Jones, born at the end of the 19th century, who was given a first class education, married three times, owned ranches and oil companies, and became President of an influential literary sorority at her old college Corpus Christi, and died in 1980 at the age of 93. All a bit privileged and up-market - but I really fancied the hat!