A storyteller who has spent her life reading a room
Emma-Jane’s work sits at the intersection of story, performance and emotional truth and it shows on every page of her fiction.
Emma-Jane Greensted has made a career out of understanding people: what they say, what they mean and the enormous distance that can sit between the two.
An award-nominated actress, she learned character and timing on stage and screen. As a radio presenter she found she loved live conversation: the warmth, the wit, the ability to put a guest at ease. As a counsellor and therapist she spent years listening closely to grief, love and resilience, and to the quiet, funny, human ways people cope with impossible things.
She trains and speaks for a living, so a festival stage or a broadcast studio holds no fear. She is a budding stand-up comic, which is really just storytelling with the timing turned up. And she is a published author: her first book, a work of non-fiction on domestic abuse, was written to help other people. Her fiction comes from the same place: a deep interest in how ordinary people survive extraordinary things and find the funny bits along the way.
All of which is to say: Emma-Jane is not only a writer. She is someone who can write, speak, perform, interview and promote: a genuine platform and an author who is ready for the room.
Storytelling with the timing turned up
Emma-Jane is a budding stand-up comic, as at home under the lights of a comedy night as she is behind a radio mic. It is the same instinct that runs through her fiction: find the funny in the difficult and let an audience feel both at once.
A natural behind the mic
Emma-Jane presents on Cabin FM 94.6 across the bay. Warm, quick and unscripted, she is as comfortable running a live show as she is being interviewed on one.
One author, many rooms
A rare combination for a debut novelist: the craft to write it and the presence to sell it.
A trained actor’s instinct for character, subtext and the beat before a line lands.
Comfortable and quick on radio, warm, unscripted and easy to interview.
A counsellor’s ear for how grief, love and resilience actually sound.
A confident room-holder who can carry a festival panel or a workshop.
Stand-up timing that keeps the writing light even when the subject is heavy.
Author of Know to Go, now writing upmarket women’s fiction with real craft.
I’m interested in the moment people decide to keep going and how often that decision is made with a joke.