A former St Andrews school and Westfield College teacher has hit the big time after signing a six figure book deal with the publishers Orion.

Known to countless pupils as Ms. Espensen but better known to her readers as Kit Berry, her publishing deal means the first three Stonewylde novels will be re-printed in February, April and June next year, with the final two volumes going on sale from August 2011.

Negotiations are also going on to sell the film rights. Kit is working on the screenplay and she said her dream would be to have Johnny Depp playing the lead role of Magus.

Kit Berry moved down here in 1980 to take an English and Media Studies degree at the Dorset Institute of Higher Education (now Weymouth College) and later took a teaching degree with the Open University.

She then began teaching at St Andrews, a period of her life she looks back on with great affection.

A few years later Kit moved to Westfield College teaching children with special needs, which proved to be very rewarding but a steep learning curve.

Whilst there she attended a course, Reconnecting Children With Nature, which gave her the idea for her book.

She started writing in 2003/4 while she was still teaching full time and bringing up three sons single handed.

Often working late into the night she completed the book and sent it off to various publishers.

But no one was interested and so she took a gamble, borrowed some money from her father and published the book herself.

As the novel was rather long she decided to divide it into three books.

At first the only outlet willing to sell the first Magus Of Stonewylde story was the Littlemoor hardware store.

There, with immense encouragement from owner Malcolm and his assistant Terri the books sold well to local readers. Taking heart from a steady stream of books sold and positive feedback from readers, Kit raised more money by re-mortgaging her house and published the second and third volumes shortly afterwards.

The Stonewylde series gained in popularity and pretty soon thousands had been sold.

A website, www.stonewylde.com and social networking site was put on the Internet to cope with the many and various fans throughout the country and indeed overseas as well.

Kit met her dream man in 2005 and shortly afterwards moved to Reading where she now lives. They married in 2007.

“My husband needs to be close to Reading for his work,” she told me, “otherwise I’d still be in Dorset, but I do hope to return one day.”

I asked her if Littlemoor had inspired her to set her novel in Dorset and she replied that the fictional estate she has written about is woven from lots of different places like Sutton Poynz, Abbotsbury, Purbeck and the Ridgeway.

The idea of an enclosed community within the book was inspired by Charborough Park, home of Richard Drax M.P., and the great wall that surrounds it.

For the past three years Kit has been busy running her publishing company, touring the U.K. giving talks, workshops and doing book signings.

She has also given three talks in the Netherlands where there is a very large fan base for her work.

On October 16th she will be the opening speaker at the Charmouth Literary Festival and she will be there all day to talk about writing, self publishing, give advice and having a general chat In 2009 she signed with a new agent so she could get a new book deal and concentrate solely on writing.

The contract with Orion has set the publishing world buzzing with news of this self published author who has suddenly hit the big time.

Six figure advances are highly unusual for first time authors.

“It’s been tough,” Kit said, “bringing up three kids, having a full time job and writing, but it’s paid off. I feel that I’m living proof that dreams really can come true.”