Jan Woolf holds the first Harold Pinter writers' residency at Hackney Empire, buy a signed copy of her book, Fugues on a Funny Bone in person at our box office for £12.99 or order at 020 8985 2424 for £14.99 including postage and packaging.

Jan Woolf's residency started on 16 June 2009, when the Harold Pinter room was designated as a space to honour the late Hackney born playwright, in the company of Lady Antonia Fraser and Pinter's biographer Michael Billington. Jan had already written and produced her first play for the Empire, Porn Crackers, based on her time as a film censor, and was working on her collection of stories or 'Fugues' as she likes to think of them.

Jan says; 'The book has evolved during time spent with troubled children, political campaigns and work as an events producer and film censor. As the stories found their shape I realised that, diverse as it were, they interrelated through the central characters. Another wonderful discovery was that each story seemed to have an accompanying visual image in the work of sculptor Richard Niman, an artist whose work I had known and enjoyed for many years. The final book then, is like dance through language and ideas with these tremendous visual stepping stones. I'm told the humour helps the serious stuff slip down easily, I hope so.'