Aasiyah Qamar & Nolwynn Ardennes

Found in a large flat in a central town of Mauritius: a hyperactive neurotic who is addicted to her computer and who masquerades as a domestic goddess by day and turns into a writing hermit when she can ditch her many commitments.

This could be the start of a women's fiction, except that it's also the start of my own story. So where do I begin?

I was born and raised on the Southern Indian Ocean island of Mauritius a few decades ago in a family that descends from India, when my great-grandfathers came to work on the island under British rule at the end of the 1800s. For more than a hundred years now, my family have called this island home and today we proudly say we are Mauritians first and foremost, even if we shall never forget our roots. Throughout my life, I have also been exposed to England, France and South Africa. But Mauritius is home to me, and it always will be. People always ask me what I'm still doing here because to everyone, the grass is always greener abroad. My definition of green is family, values, and attachment, and these I've only found here.

What made me a writer? I cannot answer you properly. I've had the first inkling that I loved to write as early as 10 years old, when in my English and French classes, my teacher would always come around to my desk during essay-writing time and tell me (more like warn me!) to write an essay and not a novel! Guess his words stuck, and fuelled by the fact that my father believed in reading and books more than in toys and Barbies and all that girlie stuff, I became an avid reader who often found herself rewriting tales in her mind. Another hint I may have had the storytelling bug early was when my girlfriends and I would play with our Barbies and I almost always ended up setting the 'scenario' for the play session.

During high school, the essays I penned could today be presented as synopses. There was always a strong heroine, a handsome hero and an HEA. Too bad I burned them along with all the other notebooks when I graduated!

In between high school and the time when I put pen to paper again (or fingers to screen since no one wrote longhand any longer), I took a detour via the work world where I have been a medical representative, an administrative assistant and later on a department coordinator in an after-sales service. Life and first divorce, then one of my dreams, crept up on me afterwards - I met the wonderful guy I am still married to today and we started a family. My son was born and I haven't been back into an office ever since. With time on my hands in between sterilising 12 bottles morning and night and a happy-go-lucky baby who dwindled his nap time to exactly 30 minutes per day at 1 year of age, I picked up my university studies and am still toiling with earning the BA Communications Science and Media Management degree.

I had achieved all those dreams, and when one day reality came knocking on my door through illness, I reckoned life was meant to be lived and dreams should be made real. That's how I dusted the life-long dream of becoming a writer and that's how my first novel, The Other Side, came to life. I haven't looked back ever since and todayI can say that writing is an integral part of me, and I hope it will bring to my readers as much joy and contentment as it brings me.

Feel free to drop me a line at aasiyah.nolwynn@gmail.com , I love meeting new people and making friends!

Yours truly,

Aasiyah/Nolwynn