Nynke Smits is teacher of Classics at the Leiden Stedelijk Gymnasium, author of the historical novel Sabina (published in March 2017),  partner of Wim van Saarloos, mother of three daughters (left to right in the picture): Paulian, Alieke and Simone van Saarloos.

Born in Leeuwarden in  1957, she graduated from the Stedelijk Gymnasium in 1975. She studied Classical Languages and Literature at Leiden University (1975-1982) and held a student-assistantship in the Department of Ancient History. With her husband she moved to Summit, New Jersey (USA) where she lived from 1982 to 1990 and where the three daughters were born.  She taught in the Department of Classics at Drew University in Madison NJ. At Drew University she worked on integrating women in the curriculum.

In 1990 the family returned to Leiden. She taught Greek and Latin, first in Schiedam and from 1998 in Leiden at the Stedelijk Gymnasium. Over the course of the years she took on writing of fiction as a serious pastime which issued in the novel Sabina.

She is currently dividing her time between teaching, writing and all the activities ensuing therefrom, reading, family and friends, her cavalier king charles spaniel ‘Krekel’ and rowing.