Freelance writer, journalist and speaker Sylvia Vetta worked in antiques for many years before taking up freelance writing and broadcasting on art and antiques in 1998, when she began writing features for the award winning magazine of The Oxford Times, 'Oxfordshire Limited Edition'. She created Oxford Castaways sending over 100 inspirational people to the mythical island of Oxtopia. As a result she has interviewed among others, Sharmi Chakrabarti, Sir Roger and Lady Moyra Bannister, Lord Patten of Barnes the last governor of Hong Kong, prolific writer Brian Aldiss, folk legend Peggy Seeger, Nobel Peace Prize winner (with MAG) the sculptor John Buckley, Sister Frances Domenica, the founder of the world's first children's hospice, physicist Christopher Watson, who helped dismantle 220 rotting Soviet nuclear submarines, Lady Carnarvon, the mistress of the real Downton Abbey. Reviewing Everyone's Life is an Epic , the first one man show by a living Chinese artist to be held at the Ashmolean , she learned first -hand from one of the founding Stars the story of their courage and their dreams. That encounter with Qu Leilei and the epic story he told, inspired her to write this novel. She lives near Oxford with her husband.