Jan Mark's first novel, "Thunder and Lightnings" won the Penguin/Guardian award for unpublished manuscripts in 1974, and was later awarded the Carnegie Medal. She won a second Carnegie Medal for "Handles", and the Angel Literary Award for "Zeno was here" and "Aquarius". Her book "The Eclipse of the Century" was shortisted for the 2000 Guardian Fiction Prize.

There is an art to the anthology, and Jan Mark's selection and arrangement of the material in A JETBLACK SUNRISE make it a perfect example of that art. ... Placing the more traditionally studied poems of conflict within this framework gives the book a more thoughtful and challenging aspect. ... This is a book as much about the power of words as about war. ... As far as KS3/4 is concerned this means context, contrast, themed reading and research - in other words it's real education. -- TES 20031003 Thoughtfully arranged ... The organisation is excellent for schools ... A valuable text for upper primary and secondary schools, across a range of subjects: for example English, history, citizenship and PSHE. -- School Librarian 20031101 A JETBLACK SUNRISE ... readily lives up to its subtitle "poems about war and conflict". With each poem carefully dated to show how, in every generation, there is courage and cruelty in near equal measure, Jan Mark has drawn widely from a rich fund of sources to bring alive the wide range of emotions about war. -- Guardian 20031004 This is an outstanding collection ... While there are some predictable poets and poems, many more are surprising and thought-provoking, reflecting the depth of Mark's reading and the subtlety of her approach. She is as much concerned with the causes and percussions of political violence, both social and intellectual, as with the direct experience of the battlefield. Her arrangement is as original as her choice of poems. -- Books for Keeps 20040101

Jan Mark has twice won the Carnegie Medal for her children's fiction as well as many other awards. She is a former Signal Poetry Prize judge and a regular children's books reviewer.