I’ve been keeping a secret. It may not be a big deal to some, but to me, it feels life-changing.
Let me start with this: I’m a divorcee.
It’s not the title I imagined for myself. As a Christian girl, I believed marriage was forever and divorce was… well, not an option. But life humbled me. It stripped me of the fairytale, knocked me off balance, and forced me to start over—personally and professionally. For years, I couldn’t even bring myself to write the word divorce. You may have seen it sneak into a blog post or on our official website, but never this raw, never this honestly.
Yet, here I am.
Long before my marriage, before the heartbreak and stigma, I was just a girl with a pen and paper. Writing has always been my comfort space—easier than speaking, easier than confrontation. I was the diary-keeping kind who wrote about crushes, fallouts, and dreams. Writing became more than a passion; it became my profession. From scribbling in notebooks to freelancing for magazines and newspapers, to surviving the dawn of Artificial Intelligence, and now, ghostwriting over 15 books (and counting), and authoring one of my own—The Budding Tree, I’ve built a real career in storytelling.
In building that career, I also built walls.
See, in the corporate world, I learned early that vulnerability could be weaponized. So, I kept my personal life locked away. My faith, my relationships, even my wins—I filtered them through a Public Relations lens, sharing just enough to be present, but never enough to be known. It worked for my brand, but it cost me my authenticity.
I used to run a blog called JShare where I wrote openly about my life. I was young, naive, and honest—maybe too honest. But it fulfilled me. My readers connected with that rawness. Then came my business, Writers Fantasy, founded in Kenya but serving a global market. We networked, we grew. We became global citizens, offering ghostwriting services, brand messaging, and communication strategy to clients across different industries and continents.
But while I showed up internationally, I hid locally—from my peers, my community, the people who mattered most to me.
Because let’s face it: being a divorced African woman is taboo. I had no blueprint, no role models. Society didn’t know what to do with me—and for a long time, neither did I. I came out of my marriage with no children, nothing but broken dreams and a bruised identity. I poured what I had left into therapy and into my work, trying to rebuild a life that made sense again.
It’s worked. Slowly.
It’s been seven years since the divorce. By the fifth year, I had finally made peace with being single and was ready to pivot—to own my story and take my career to the next level. But even then, I hesitated. I feared people wouldn’t understand, that they’d lose interest if they knew the full picture. That someone I was getting to know—someone I liked, someone who might even be prince charming—would find out prematurely and be repulsed before they got to see me. Before they got to hear my story from my own mouth.
So I stayed quiet. In circles where I should have been celebrated, I shrunk. I kept Writers Fantasy close to my chest. I leaned into my international audience, where stigma couldn’t reach me. But here at home, where it mattered most, I withheld.
By doing so, I minimized the brand.
You see, Writers Fantasy isn’t just a name on paper. It represents many stories—many of them women, survivors, and everyday heroes. It’s about telling those stories with honesty, dignity, and heart. At its core, this brand stands for empowerment, integrity, sustainability, compassion, excellence, reliability, collaboration, and impact.
We work with nonprofit organizations, thought leaders, executives, creative entrepreneurs, and global teams to craft stories that inform, inspire, and influence. Whether it’s memoir writing, impact storytelling, donor reports, website copy, or strategic brand communication, our mission is the same: every story deserves to be told beautifully, and every design deserves to stand out.
By staying silent, I’ve allowed fear and shame to muffle a voice that was meant to be loud, bold, and transformative, but not anymore.
This is me choosing boldness. This is me choosing authenticity over approval. This is me reintroducing myself—not just as a ghostwriter or a business owner—but as a whole woman who has walked through fire and come out softer, wiser, and stronger.
Hi, my name is Aswani J. Nabwende. I am a divorcee. I am the founder of Writers Fantasy, a global content and communication brand and the co-founder of The Oasis Experience (this is yet another story I need to tell) I am a writer, a strategic communicator, and a woman who has rebuilt herself word by word.
I hope you’ll be gracious with me as you engage with my work and my journey.
There—I said it.
Now that’s an icebreaker for the next time you see me.
I’m not just beyond my past. I’m beyond my pain, and I’m finally, fully, here.