Chanette Paul's Biography

Chanette Paul was born in Johannesburg in an era when women still wore aprons.  She grew up all over the country, attended nine different schools, studied at five universities and had lived in seven of the nine SA provinces. 
Her first literary success was a fairy tale written at the age of sixteen, which was broadcasted on a children’s radio program.  Her second success was the publication of a short story written in her final school year but only sent off to a family magazine two years later. 
In 1988 she obtained a Masters degree in Afrikaans and Netherlandic Literature at the University of Johannesburg and received the Simon Wainstein prize for her dissertation.  At the time she followed a career in the clothing trade. 
In 1995, she left the rag trade behind and started writing again for the first time in twenty years.  Since then she has written numerous short, serial and other stories, as well as humorous sketches, for a variety of magazines.  Thirty-two books in different genres also saw the light.
For her debut romance, she was awarded the Perskor Prize for romantic fiction in 1996.  In 1999, Wip van die droomvanger was a runner up in the ATKV Book Awards and in 2005 Chanette was again a finalist with her novel Leila word lig.  The latter was the result of a Masters degree in Creative Writing under the tutelage of renowned South African writer, Professor Etienne van Heerden, at the University of Cape Town.
Since 2002, she works as a part time evaluator, editor and manuscript developer for Lapa Publishers.  She also runs workshops on romantic writing for them.
In her 15-year writing career, Chanette Paul has experimented with a number of genres whilst writing romances to keep the pot boiling.  Recently she has found her true niche, romantic suspense – albeit a quirky interpretation of the genre.  She entered this new phase with her 30th book, Springgety (springtide), and followed it up in, Fortuin (fortune).  Boheem (bohemian), the third one, landed on the shelves in July 2009.
A fourth novel in which Detective Gys Niemand again features as a secondary, but significant character, can be expected in October 2010. 
Physically rather unfit but mentally determined to unravel the truth, this balding detective with his paunch and moustache solves crimes his way.  The youthful Faantjie Fortuin is Gys’s enthusiastic aide-de-camp. Chanette plans to tell their stories in the course of five books, all set in the (fictitious) Niemandsdorp district.
Chanette lives in a cottage on the banks of Kleine River in Stanford, situated in the picturesque Overberg with her cats and the neighbours’ dogs.  Over weekends, she teams up with her very patient partner Ernie Blommaert, better known as Blom. She is an ignorant but eager gardener, a ferocious reader and a music lover.  She adores the river life, especially crewing on the pontoon boat Blom operates. She also enjoys joining Blom in the quest for periwinkles at a secret spot she calls her mermaid pool and love watching the whales the Hermanus-area is famous for. 
She writes in Afrikaans, but Springgety is in the process of translation.
Chanette is a member of International Thriller Writers and Afrikaans editor of Crime Beat. Read some of her contributions at Crime Beat Afrikaans