Actor Jones trained as an actor at
RADA, graduating in 1959. She made her start as an actor with "weekly rep" (
repertory theatre), performing a different play every night. She joined the
Unicorn Theatre for children in
London in 1963, playing a range of parts. She wrote 17 plays herself with the company, with names like
The Lion and the Unicorn Hullabaloo. They were performed to children in various London theatres and on tour. In 1985, she was directed by
Alan Ayckbourn in the premiere of his play
Woman in Mind. She played the intense central character Susan, a parson's wife with an active fantasy life, at the
Stephen Joseph Theatre. She also worked with the
Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Emilia in
The Comedy of Errors at the
Young Vic and
The Other Place. More recently she appeared at
The Royal National Theatre, in a role she described as a “mad old granny”—presumably a reference to the role of Grandie, in a performance of
Conor McPherson's
The Veil. On screen, Jones played Isabella in
Ever After (a 1998 adaptation of Cinderella with Drew Barrymore), and Rebecca in the 1999 British mystery film
Simon Magus. She briefly played Elsie Duckworth in the long running soap
Coronation Street, Mrs Cutter in the 2003 TV adaptation of
Lucky Jim, and appeared in episodes of
The Bill and
Sense8.
Writer In 1988, Jones was commissioned to write a children's television series for the
BBC,
Greenclaws. It first aired in 1989, and starred a large green gardening monster.
Author ''The Witch's Children
, her first picture book, was published in 2001. Illustrated by Russell Ayto, it was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. The sequel, The Witch's Children and the Queen'', won a gold
Nestlé Smarties Book Prize in 2003.
The Princess Who Had No Kingdom, a picture book illustrated by
Sarah Gibb about a princess who marries a jester, was published in 2009. Two more books with Gibb followed, a sequel,
The Princess Who Had No Fortune, and then a retelling of
Beauty and the Beast. Jones wrote two more fairytale picture book retellings with different illustrators—
Cinderella with Jessica Courtney-Tickle in 2018, and
The Sleeping Beauty with Paola Escobar in 2021. All her picture books are published by
Orchard Books. She has also written novels for older children, including
Dear Clare, My Ex Best Friend,
The Lost King and
The Youngstars, about a troupe of teenage performers. When Diana Wynne Jones died in 2011, her last book — the children's fantasy novel
The Islands of Chaldea — was unfinished. Jones, apparently at the suggestion of their family and Diana Wynne Jones's agent, agreed to complete it. She has described the planning and writing process as "curiously traumatic", and said finishing it was "an unbearable second parting from her: as if she had died again". ==Personal life==