Janet Olearski – författare

At his school in Abu Dhabi, Sam gets the job of minding Rajiv, a new arrival who is seriously lacking in social skills. The task turns out to be more than he bargained for when Dev, the school bully, sets his sights on both Sam and Rajiv, with devastating consequences.

But, as innocent as he is, Rajiv is about to surprise everyone.

The story of The Boy Who Never Smiled is told from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old schoolboy. It teaches us that true and lasting friendship emerges when and where we least expect it.

Namisa and its sister island of Pundar are the setting for A Traveller''s Guide to Namisa. Namisa is difficult to find on a map and problematic to Google, but when readers get there, they will have the time of their lives, reading about Namisa''s weird locations, its language, and the idiosyncratic customs of its inhabitants.

Philip Blair is an ''innocent abroad,'' but he learns quickly. Among the issues he has to contend with in his role as Officer of Culture and Education for an NGO in Namisa are the autumn-autumn uprising, the Pundexit Crisis, cultural appropriation, British imperialism, immigration, racism, the role of women, office politics, and happy-happy hour cocktails.

Procurement clerk Philip Blair desperately needs to engage someone to pose as his wife. His hope is to secure a post with the Downing Foundation on the tropical island of Namisa, home to a highly conservative society, where integrity and family values are paramount. Philip''s high-speed choice of partner is not ideal, but he has limited options.

Once settled in Namisa with a fake and disgruntled ''marriage'' companion, Philip is obliged to live a lie and suffer the trials of intercultural miscommunication. He seeks insight from his well-thumbed copy of Namisa - A Traveller''s Guide: from tradition to tourism and back by Michael Robinson-Smith, but still he grapples with the complexities of Namisan rituals, language, cuisine, and multicoloured cocktails, shared with the ambiguous yet charismatic academic Ito Bogadan.

On Namisa we meet the culturally enlightened Mrs Katraree, owner of the SnowWhite Dry Kleen Shop, the SnowWhite Sandal Repair Service, and the SnowWhite Dry Kleen Coffee Circle. Through her, we come to understand that Namisa is an island rich in tradition, poised ready to embrace new beliefs on the backcloth of the Autumn-Autumn uprising, and the Pundexit crisis.

Yet... beneath Namisa''s gentle exterior, there lie the seeds of corruption, prejudice, and double standards. There are less-than-ethical goings-on at the University of Trinamisa, and there is conflict between the wealthy Namisans and the less-fortunate Pundaris from Namisa''s dark and sinister sister island of Pundar.

Bogadan, in his quest to appropriate the funding that Philip controls, seeks to uncover the truth behind Philip''s marriage. Providing Philip does not cross Bogadan or his manipulative mother Grace Shoon Bogadan, his secret and his job will be safe, though his principles will be compromised.

A Traveller''s Guide to Namisa is a contemporary, modestly amusing, coming-of-age-for-late-developers kind of novel, set in a world of work for the inadequately qualified.

If you enjoyed Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and if you enjoyed The No.1 Ladies'' Detective Agency, then the likelihood is that you will also enjoy A Traveller''s Guide to Namisa.

A collection of twenty-five thought-provoking, table-turning, contemporary short stories about women and their sometime boyfriends, men who are almost boyfriends, disgraced boyfriends, never-going-to-happen boyfriends, dishonest, obsessive, and self-centred boyfriends. Their history is brief because they didn''t make the grade or, unfortunately for them, they just didn''t survive.

In an exploration of women''s experiences and emotions, this collection of traditional and experimental storytelling - sometimes sad, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, always intriguing - leads the reader through hostile cityscapes, natural landscapes, and the rocky and uncertain territory of the female mind.

The women in these stories are at all times, through their many varied emotions, entirely reasonable... at least to themselves. They each do what they need to do and believe what they need to believe. They are trustful, loyal, and believing, but also heedless, rash, and detached. They fall in and out of love, they suffer and overcome loss and, when things go wrong, they simply start again. Their experiences make them resilient, unfazed, practical, but also demanding, persistent, determined. Would they lie to you, conjure up ghosts, steal your lover, put a spell on you? Probably. Yes.

The Book of Reasonable Women is a collection of thirty contemporary short stories, exploring themes of assimilation, identity, ethnicity, accountability, self-reliance, remembering, and entirely purposeful forgetting. It illustrates both with humour and compassion the remarkable reasonableness of women.  

After the fire comes the long journey to adapt and return to normality.

Portugal''s devastating forest fires of October 2017 burned 53,000 hectares of land, ruined countless businesses, destroyed 500 homes, injured over 250 people, and caused the deaths of 50 people.

Among the buildings wrecked by the flames was the house that Janet Olearski had bought just seven months earlier. She had lost her job in Abu Dhabi and was packing in preparation for the transfer to her new home when she found out that her home had been destroyed. In March 2018, with her UAE visa cancelled, she had no alternative but to move - bag, baggage, and pets - into her incinerated home in Central Portugal.

Encompassing a range of emotions, this collection of 29 poems charts her coming to terms with the aftermath of the disaster, alone in an unfamiliar environment, in a new country, and through Covid lockdowns. Here are her expressions of sorrow, solitude, regret, nostalgia, acceptance, but also happiness, hope and humour... after the fire.

After the Fire was shortlisted for the Cinnamon Pamphlet Award 2022.