I didn't intentionally become a writer. I was working as a lawyer here in Singapore, and one day I found out I was expecting my first child. I got a little carried away with the excitement so I quit my very successful job and found myself a stay-at-home mum.

Now, I might have been a good lawyer, but I was a terrible stay-at-home mum. I couldn't cook, I couldn't clean, and I didn't enjoy going to the supermarket. Sasha, my daughter, was a very dull baby. All she did was cry and poop. So I was looking for other things to do, to keep my brain from turning into a rock. Finally, I decided I should write a book.

When I was shopping for books for Sasha, I found out that almost all the children's books were set in the UK or America or Australia. The children's stories set in Asia were folktales: all those weird, wonderful things about mosquitoes and Sultans. I loved these stories, but I didn't think they were terribly relevant to Sasha's life. She rarely met Sultans.

So I decided to do a series of picture books called the Sasha series. I decided that the series would be about a little girl who, coincidentally, had the same name as my daughter and who goes to places in Singapore like the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo.

When I started writing the Sasha books, I discovered that I really loved writing. So I thought that I really must try and write longer stories about other things.

Environmental issues
My first thought was that I should write books about the environment. But, I realised that the kids I needed to talk to were not picture-book readers. It seemed to me that nine to twelve-year-olds were the kids with power because they were the ones with influence over their parents. Sasha is almost nine and she always gets her own way because she makes my life miserable when she wants something.

So I wrote a fantasy story with environmental themes. It is called The Seeds of Time, and it starts with animals in Borneo, involves kids from all over the world, and finishes up in Alaska. It is a big sort of save-the-planet, kids-can-make- a-difference book.

The other thing I really care about is football. I grew up really, really loving football, but I never played because I was a girl growing up in a small Malaysian town, and girls didn’'t play football there. So I wrote Ten, the story of a girl who gets herself a football and learns to play: the girl I wish I had been.

Writing for grown-ups
Now, I've started a series of books for grownups called the Inspector Singh Investigates series. It is basically crime fiction about a detective from the Singapore Police Force who travels around Asia solving murders.

My secret agenda is to teach grownups a little more about Asia. It is really odd that we, Asians, know so much about the US and England, but we may know very little about what happens in our own backyard. Grown-ups should also become more aware of the world – not just kids.

About Shamini Flint
Shamini Flint is a Malaysian fiction writer living in Singapore. She started her own company, Sunbear Publishing, so she could publish her books for children (such as the Sasha series, The Seeds of Time, Diary of a Soccer Star and Ten). Her Inspector Singh Investigates books are published internationally, and have been translated into many languages, including German, Polish and Serbian. She now has two kids, and can juggle a football eight times with her feet. She also sells her books from her website, http://www.shaminiflint.com, and loves to visit schools to talk about her writing. You can also find her on Facebook.