Jason Wallace (born 1969) is an author living in South West London. He is the author of Out of Shadows, the 2010 Costa Children's Book of the Year. Early life and education Wallace was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, South West England. He is a descendant of Lord George Sanger, a world-famous Victorian circus owner, an International English cricketer, and he is also loosely related (through a marriage in the family tree) to J.R.R. Tolkien. Jason lived in London, England in his younger years with his family before residing and attending Peterhouse Boys' School, a boarding school in 1983 in Zimbabwe, Africa. The family emigrated after his mother remarried. At the age of seventeen he aspired for a career as an author and although determined he knew it would be a challenging ambition. Jason spent any free time he had writing and in his younger years he read many non-fiction books and comic books . He was a fan of comic books such as The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix and authors including Dr.Seuss and Richard Scarry. In his childhood, among some of his favorite books were James and the Giant Peach and Danny the Champion of the World. In his adolescent and adult life, he was a fan of Stephen King and James Herbert. Ironically, his least favorite types of literature were history and politics - something he now enjoys reading in great quantities. His experiences in a Zimbabwean boarding school following the Zimbabwe War of Liberation / Rhodesian Bush War laid the building blocks of his first and Costa Children's Book Award winning novel Out of Shadows. Career Jason Wallace had a challenging journey to becoming a published author. Jason Wallace stated that "getting published didn't happen overnight, and writing had to become "the other job" for which I didn't get paid while life continued." Jason Wallace's natural talent as a writer was motivated through education. He says he has "always had a fertile imagination, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the school I need to thank for inadvertently nurturing my will to write through strong discipline (there was no such thing as an excuse. Out of Shadows Out of Shadows was published on January 28, 2010 by Andersen Press. The novel has received extensive recognition (international rights currently sold to the USA, Norway, Turkey, Brazil and France) and has established him as a successful published author. Out