When & How Political And Nationalistic Issues Become Personal

There’s a few things about living in Turkey that I don’t like; the habit of ‘turkifying’ names being one of them," writes Catherine Yigit at her blog The Skaian Gates. She's one of the expat women writers featured in the Expat Harem anthology, and a contributor to the expat+HAREM blog. "So Catherine is sometimes changed to Kadriye, a completely different name. I don’t understand why anyone would want to change a perfectly good name to another one, isn’t changing countries/cultures/languages enough?" she asks.

My response to her post:

That's poignant, Catherine, and a good example of how political and nationalistic issues become personal.

When my father-in-law Suleyman went to London to work, they insisted on calling him "Sully", which he thought was amusing. Like many immigrant American families, our name was changed at Ellis Island. Names come to us in so many ways -- from the people before us, the land around us, the language on our tongues.

However, the fact of the matter is that what you're called is not inconsequential to who you think you are -- and being designated a new name by a group for their own convenience is often a power play.

Decomposing Self: Misplacing Your Most Valuable Expatriate Possession

Happily at home in Istanbul in 2007, I flipped through Unsuitable for Ladies. Edited by Jane Robinson, this anthology of female travel writing crisscrosses the globe and stretches back into ancient history. Complete candy for me. Around the same time I was ruminating in an essay for a global nomad magazine why I've come to employ a defensive strategy for my expatriatism.

Sense of self is my most valuable expatriate possession.

During my first long-term stint overseas in the '90s my boundaries were over-run by circumstance and culture. Language and cultural barriers prevented me from expressing my identity. I'd tell Malaysians I was a writer. They'd reply, "Horses?"

I was mistaken for a different Western woman in Asia. A crew of Indonesian laborers working at my house wondered when I was going to drink a beer and take off my shirt.

Like leather shoes and handbags molding overnight, expat life on the equator made me feel my sense of self was decomposing at time-lapse speed.

A thunderbolt from Robinson: "Southeast Asia has more than its share of reluctant women travelers."

She compiled Wayward Women, a survey of 350 female travel writers through 16 centuries so her conclusion about Southeast Asian travelers is drawn from a massive canon. In that moment, my hardest-won lessons of expatriatism felt vindicated.

What happens to your unique travel or expat experience if you consider yourself part of a continuum?

Check out some of expat+HAREM's favorite hybrid life reads here.

Reading Travelers: Find Your Historical Context

"Can you share a travel secret?" asked an online travel site for women prepping its annual feature of tips from women writers worldwide. "Read the women who went before us," I replied. "Or, read about them."

For this expat/ archaeologist/ writer/ traveler, cultural wisdom pools at the intersection of women and travel.  The romance and grit of historical travelogue connects me to the land -- and reminds me of travel's transformative force in the lives of women. Reputation-risking. Life-threatening. Culturally redeeming. Personally empowering.  (My post about a related controversial history.)

Adventurous Women in Southeast Asia (Oxford-in-Asia), a selection of traveler sketches by historian John Gullick, gave my own struggling expatriate experience new meaning when I was sweating it out for 5 years in the Malaysian jungle. Playing an attitudinal extra aristocrat on the 1860s filmset of "Anna and The King" with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat in 1999 (next to a pig farm during a swine flu outbreak, but that's another post!), I appreciated learning about the dark side of the iconic governess to the Siamese court. Foster may have played Anna Leonowens prim, proper and principled but actually the lady was a scrappy mixed-blood mistress of reinvention. There was hope for me!

If you plan a trip to Turkey maybe Cultures in Dialogue holds similar promise for you. The print-on-demand series resurrects antique writings by American and British women about their travels in Turkey (1880s to 1940s), along with surprisingly political writing by women of the Ottoman empire. Contempo analysis by spunky scholars Reina Lewis and Teresa Heffernan refreshes the context of a region in transition.

Any favorite antique travel reads? What draws you to by-gone reports? +++++ Check out some of expat+HAREM’s favorite hybrid life reads here.

Discussing Life At The Crossroads On Satellite TV With Martin Anthony

Talking about foreign women in modern Turkey, the making of Expat Harem the book, and other cultural crossroads, in a live television interview with Turkey's 6 News. Expat Harem coeditors Jennifer Gokmen and I appear in THE CROSSROADS, an English-language TV talk show broadcast out of Istanbul via satellite -- from Ireland to Mongolia!  The channel broadcasts programs in Turkish, English and Russian, which is why the news crawl appears in Russian.

Click on the photo to view Expat Harem on the Crossroads at YouTube. ⇒

Canadian host and personality Martin Anthony kept us on the hot seat for an hour in this lively session...we may be sitting next to a refreshing-looking pool in the city's breezy Etiler district, but can you tell it's the muggiest day of the year? Ooof, July 10, 2009.

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Great (Avatar) Expectations: Who Decides Our Best Look?

A longtime friend messaged me on Facebook to alert me I need to change my profile photo to a more flattering one. I snapped it in my sunny Istanbul kitchen on my iPhone. I’d just had my hair done -- and a facial, so not a stitch of makeup. I look somewhat natural, and somewhat my age of almost 45. I liked the image for that reason. An actual unvarnished look rather than the airbrushed Turkish portraits in my book publicity materials, my playful Photoshop-manipulated avatars on social media sites, or the pound-of-make-up glamour shot from my Today Show TV appearance in 2008.

The pic is not the only way I can look, and I’m not cementing it as my favorite of all time. There are some surprising wrinkles, but also a touch of grey in my eyes I'd forgotten. The image makes sense at the moment, relates to creative work I am doing to be my authentic self, and I am proud of who I am in it. I’m using it across the web.

When my Facebook friend and I first met (before she rushed me to the hospital with a high fever), she looked me over in my sick bed and told me all I needed was "a little eyeliner".

For two decades I’ve cherished that line as her special brand of caustic Southern comedy. She was raised in places where American women have been known to sleep in their makeup – just in case. Even if I enjoy a little maquillage and lighting magic too, I’m from a rather stripped down area in Northern California. It's only natural at our core we have different sensibilities about female presentation.

Delivered with love and true concern, yesterday's message was a reminder to me.

Only we can determine what our best self looks like.

What do portraits (and self-portraits) demand of us? Which version of yourself do you want to show the world today, and why?

Guest Hosting #LitChat On Twitter On Topic Of Expatriate Literature

On May 29 at EST 4pm, I will guest host #litchat, an open discussion series founded by a fellow author (@litchat), on the topic of expatriate literature. (#litchat is an hour-long open discussion on a topic, three times a week. You can follow it in Twitter search or on www.Tweetchat.com using the term “litchat”.)

I’ll be guiding the hour-long live discussion, soliciting opinions and offering my own based on this view:

Expatriate literature may be stocked in the travel section, but does it deserve a shelf of its own?

Living for extended periods in foreign locales, expatriates struggle to reestablish themselves and find meaningful access to their new home.

Travelers passing through often have the luxury to avoid the very issues of assimilation and identity that dominate the expat psyche.

We’ll talk about the unique depths this can bring to expat lit’s combination of outsider-view-from-the-inside and journey of self-realization.

See litchat.wordpress.com for more info.

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See the transcripts of my expat #litchat event here.

Talking To Expat Entrepreneurs About How Facebook & LinkedIn Don't Touch Twitter

My comments from a discussion thread at the private forum for expat entrepreneurs run by Karen Armstrong: You can find me on Facebook (which I'm using increasingly more as a place to share what I'm reading, thinking, what I'm doing, etc -- and created recently an Expat Harem page which still needs a lot more love), Linked-In (which I've begun to join in forum discussions here and there) and Twitter.

I'm most active on Twitter because it works so well for me as a writer, as an expat, as a trafficker of ideas.

With Twitter I'm back in school (taking business courses, marketing and media affairs), I'm at summer camp, I've rejoined the publishing industry, and making new filmmaker friends, and following peripheral interests through the lives of people more devoted, taking part in live discussions about literature, editing, branding, virtually attending conferences and events like yesterday's brown bag luncheon thrown by Random House on the topic of digital publishing.

The other two sites have their purposes but nothing touches Twitter.

Uncool: A Hitchhiking Tale

I don’t hitch-hike for recreation or travel and never will.

Perhaps this is a strange position for me, a child of the radical university town of Berkeley, growing up across the bay from hippie-yippie San Francisco in the ‘70s.

But my big city New York and Chicago parents were more paranoid than many of our patchouli-scented neighbors.

“Who knows what they’re on?” my father would ask, when we passed a row of hitch-hiker desperadoes. Men in Army surplus jackets, bell-bottoms, scraggly beards and aviator glasses. Bra-less long-haired girls with guitars. People with bandana-wearing dogs and kids.

“What a dummy, that woman standing out here at night,” my mother would agree.

These were unpopular views in a time and place when it seemed like everyone was hitch-hiking.

Freeway on-ramps were lined with young and old, thumbs out, brandishing cardboard signs inked in capital letters with their destination.

“EL-A.”

“Vacaville.”

“SOUTH”.

It was a competitive scene. Some people tried to be funny with their cardboards, using popular song lyrics like the Dionne Warwick hit, “Do you know the way to ♪SAN JOSE♪?”

As a car game, my middle-school sisters and I read the signs people held up on the University Avenue ramp to the Bayshore Freeway, a stretch of road said to be the busiest in the entire state of California.

Sitting in traffic along that stretch, we relished spotting the new driftwood sculptures that popped up overnight along the Emeryville mudflats. Illegal art made from refuse, by who knows who.

Hitch-hikers were just another strange thing to watch from the back of the bus.

Cars would slow to pick up spontaneous passengers.

“Right on, man,” the hitch-hiker would seem to say, ducking to grab a rucksack.

I could see the driver rewarded with the hitcher’s burst of gratitude in the front seat, the toss of the bag into the back. Two voyagers united, conserving resources and saving the planet, like-minded kin identifying each other. Jocularity.

We got the finger.

Sometimes curses. Especially when we passed hitch-hikers on hot dusty roads heading to the Sierras, or a rainy winter day at the intersection of Shattuck and University when hopefuls looked -- and probably smelled -- like wet dogs.

Our car made things worse.The family’s white 1969 Volkswagen bus sent the wrong message about who we were and how we lived.

It was always being broken into and ransacked for non-existent drugs. Like that parent-teacher night in 1974, parked outside my fourth grade classroom.

When hitch-hikers spied our VW they must have calculated we were good for the ride -- unlike late model American cars, probably driven by uptight Republicans. Our noisy, white elephant of a car telegraphed we weren’t squares. We were communal folk -- even the German name “Volks-wagen” declared it. My bearded father in a black turtleneck at the big, horizontal wheel would not have dispelled this impression.

Then when we putt-putted past like we didn’t even see them with their “Get me back to BESERKELEY!” sign, suddenly we were responsible for all that wasn’t right in the universe.

We weren’t cool because our family didn’t believe in the hitch-hiking compact. Not in this screwed up world.

The disastrous potential for a hitch-hiker seemed clear to me from a young age. How many stories did we hear about children being lured by a stranger with candy and then abducted in a car? Voluntarily getting into an unknown vehicle didn’t compute. How could these hitchers ignore the reports of bodies found in the hills? The Bay Area’s Zodiac Killer. The Hillside Strangler down in Los Angeles. Hitch-hiking was the stuff of serial killer lore, a campfire staple.

As I hit puberty, classmates without hitch-hiking hang-ups quickly drifted out of my life and toward wherever those risky rides took them.

One afternoon in eighth grade I was sitting in an over-warm social studies classroom at West Campus. Bored. Sure something more exciting was going on outside.

At that same moment, around the corner and half a mile down University, a 15-year old Las Vegas runaway stuck out her thumb.

I read about Mary Vincent in the San Francisco Chronicle later, and saw her on talk shows, fitted with prosthetic arms, warning kids not to hitch-hike.

Lawrence Singleton, the middle-aged driver of a blue American van was described by his neighbors as completely benign.

He was convicted of Vincent’s 1978 kidnap, rape and mutilation. After he amputated her forearms with a hatchet he left the girl for dead. She wandered naked all night holding up her bleeding stumps.

Talk about a campfire horror story. Thirty years later, the image is still burned into my brain. The thought too: if I were cooler that could have been me.

Expat Personal Branding For Career Success Abroad

In a two-part interview with Career by Choice, a blog run by expat career coach Megan Fitzgerald in Rome, this week I talk about the lessons of Expat Harem in forging my expat writing life. Answering questions about personal branding and career success abroad, I explain how writing about my life overseas and editing Expat Harem connected me to a worldwide band of peers, and gave my career and conflicted expat mindset a new cultural context. Part one Part two

Thoughts On A Spark Summit

Brainstorming with a friend about a connection- and gathering-based global community we want to build for ourselves.... An intimate yearly salon of thought-leaders, change makers, cultural creatives, and humanists for sustained conversations with other globally-mobile progressives.

From The Mailbag: Writer Notes Expat Harem Offshoots Of Community & Education

Thanks for your message Monika Jones! "As a writer with experience in both project management and book publishing, I'm captivated with Expat Harem and the exciting offshoots of the book. What gorgeous intersection of literary works, community engagement, and education."

And thanks too, for your review of the book:

"After an intense experience living in Istanbul for three months, I sojourned back to the U.S. to catch up with family and friends. One afternoon on my way to a bookstore to buy a copy of Expat Harem (which I'd been meaning to read when I was in Turkey after meeting one of the editors) I met my cousin for coffee. Immediately, he handed me a book. The book: Expat Harem! I was thrilled. His mother-in-law had read it with her reading group and wanted me to have it. It was so serendipitous! I started reading and the stories spoke to my experiences as a foreign woman in Turkey - right down to the smells, awkward interactions with pseudo-relatives, and observations on popular culture. Since I've lent it to friends and family, and found it is a way to share my experiences with them in an accessible format.  What I appreciated the most is the lyrical, lovely writing and honesty of the works."

Una antologista accidental

Spanish translation of "The Accidental Anthologist" courtesy of International PEN Women Writers’ Committee which published it in their trilingual newsletter, August 2008 [Boletín Trilingüe del Comité de Escritoras de PEN Internacional]

Turquía frecuentemente entra en las noticias por suprimir a sus autores. Irónicamente, como expatriada americana en Estambul encontré mi voz feminista -- y tropecé en editar un best-seller internacional sorpresa, creando un harén literario de mis pares expatriadas.

Cuando mi esposo turco y yo llegamos de Nueva York en 2003 planeé aislarme para escribir una memoria ensimismada de viaje. No a los días largos pasados en un laboratorio de lenguaje, tratando de encontrar mi equilibrio. Mi vida en Estambul sería acerca de mí, un retiro extendido para escribir. Esta visión había sido filtrando en mi mente desde cuando había sido expatriada anteriormente. Cinco años había pasado pudriéndome en las trópicas malasias como un Somerset Maugham, menos prolífico y más sobrio. La primera cosa para pudrir en el calor ecuatorial fue mi personalidad -- la esencia de mi voz literaria. Cuando expliqué a la gente que era escritora me respondieron, "¿Caballos?" También en Asia me confundieron con una mujer occidental muy diferente, como cuando un equipo de obreros quien trabajaban en mi casa se preguntaron cuándo yo iba a tomar cerveza y quitarme la camisa.

En vez de eso, la tos ferina me silenció a mí y también a mi ego. En el silencio de 6 meses, Turquía sugirió una metáfora para fortalecer mi expatriadismo -- y mis escritos: El Harén Expatriado. Esta reunión contemporánea de mujeres extrajeras podría ser un depósito de conocimiento y poder como lo era en los días del siglo XV bajo los sultanes otomanos.

"Instaladas aquí, somos destinadas a ser extranjeras," ideé en un correo electrónico a mi co-editora, mi colega, la también emigrada americana Jennifer Gokmen.

"Pero está bien -- el Harén Expatriado es un lugar de poder femenino," ella me respondió, conectándonos a un panorama feminista oriental poco conocido en el mundo occidental.

"¡Sí! Cárcel etnocéntrica o refugio de pares—a veces es difícil averiguar en qué sentido va la puerta de batiente," contesté, intoxicada con nuestra metáfora anacrónica. Como una contraseña secreta, las noticias extendieron cuando solicitamos colaboraciones. Mujeres fascinantes de catorce naciones depositaron una lluvia de sus historias en nuestro buzón. Muchas nunca habían publicado antes y todas eran voces de minorías en un país musulmán con una reputación de censura. Realidades alternativas me inundaron, representado una penetración en el país que nunca había imaginado que abrazara. Pero no importó. Si mis aventuras expatriadas anteriores me habían hecho reacia, El Harén Expatriado convirtió mi ferocidad personal en un beneficio: yo podría dar un foro a otras. Sus luchas para asimilarse también me animaron para resistir menos.

La colección premiada Tales from the Expat Harem dio la base para una vida másrica y un libro subsiguiente más perspicaz. La felicidad de trabajar con escritoras de todo el mundo desde la oficina en mi casa en el Bósforo clarificó unos aspectos contradictories de mi carácter -- como que yo pueda ser una introvertida espinosa y también una mujer quien anhela una conexión con personas y el planeta a la vez. Me parece que Turquía no solo me conectó con una banda internacional de mis pares, también alzó mi voz en la conversación cultural. También me ha puesto en contacto con escritoras a quienes admiro, como la novelista celebrada turca Elif Shafak, quien escribió el prólogo para los dos tirajes turcos de mi libro. Ahora mi carrera literaria y mi actitud ambivalente sobre la vida en el extranjero tiene un nuevo contexto cultural más prometedor.

Anastasia M. Ashman, nativa de Berkeley, California, es autora de la novela premiada de Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey la cual se estudia en siete universidades norteamericanas y ha sido recomendada por el Today Show de NBC TV, Nacional Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet Turkey, el Internacional Herald Tribune, y el Daily Telegraph.

Página de la autora: http://www.redroom.com/author/anastasia-m-ashman Sitio de Expat Harem: http://www.expatharem.com Versión completa de este ensayo: http://www.janera.com/janera_words.php?id=80

Taping The Joey Reynolds Radio Show

Pleased to appear on the Joey Reynolds Show this week when he was broadcasting live from Istanbul to the United States. The WOR Radio Network show is heard on radio stations from New York to Hawaii and has more than 5 million listeners.

Jennifer Gokmen and I met with the veteran radio show host -- often called the father of "shock talk radio" -- and his producer Myra Chanin at the offices of Turkish national broadcaster TRT for an hour on-air to discuss Tales from the Expat Harem and life and work as American women in Turkey.

From The Mailbag: Filmmaker Finds Expat Harem Cinematic

"I've enjoyed your book tremendously and thought that some of the stories in the book were very cinematic and could make an interesting movie."

Co-Hosting Istanbul's First Global Nomad Salon

I'll be coproducing a Global Nomad Salon this June at Istanbul's Four Seasons Sultanahmet along with the Salon founder Dutch-Curacaoan banker Janera Soerel. Introduced by various international friends in 2007, Janera and I quickly found common ground: our shallow roots in many different communities and the urge to find the larger meaning in local issues. Working together long-distance, we are co-producing this cultural entertainment. It's a guided dinner for 20-30 educated, intellectual, opinionated people to discuss concerns of global culture and economics.

The Economist magazine calls the scene at this worldwide series of intellectual dinner parties "jetsetters with a conscience." Pluralism, individualism, universalism are Global Nomad values.

Experts who guide the conversation at their ends of the table will include Serif Kaynar (country managing director of Korn/Ferry) and Nese Gundogan (secretary general of the Turkish Olympic Committee).

Along with an online magazine and members-only social network (Janera.com), founder Janera Soerel, a Dutch Curacaoan banker who lives in Manhattan, launched the Global Nomad Salon series October 2007 in Washington DC, then Rome, the Caribbean and New York City. With local co-hosts, Janera’s events are now spreading across the globe. This summer and fall they will take place in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Dubai, Tuscany and London. The goal is to rouse the Global Nomad community worldwide and strengthen the network of its members, eventually with a GNSalon occurring twice yearly in various countries, events populated by Global Nomads both local and from afar.

Cultural Wisdom Historically Pools At The Intersection Of Women & Travel

As the coeditor of the internationally bestselling expatriate women's anthology Tales from the Expat Harem, I contributed my favorite titles to VisualThesaurus.com last year for its “Dog Eared: Books We Love” column. The online tool for writers, students and teachers of writing, and marketing communications professionals worldwide, asked me to share books about the cultural wisdom that historically pools at the intersection of women and travel.

Here’s my list…

UNSUITABLE FOR LADIES: An Anthology of Women Travellers, selected by Jane Robinson“In this spunky companion volume to Wayward Women (her book about women travel writers through history), Robinson collects the global travels of 200 women across 16 centuries – from the obscure to better known authors like Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Karen Blixen, Freya Stark and Jan Morris. Grouped by geography with numerous entries for each place which serve as a conversation between the region, the time and the characters themselves, the chapters are bookended by thoughtful selections in “Setting Out” and “Coming Home”, indicating that the act of travel is and has always been a transformative force in women’s lives. Sometimes reputation risking and life threatening, but often culturally redeeming and personally empowering, travel must be intellectually prepared for, and assimilated.”

Anastasia M. Ashman

Harem Door 8 - Topkapi Palace, Istanbul

VEILED HALF-TRUTHS: Western Travellers’ Perceptions of Middle Eastern Women, selected and annotated by Judy Mabro“A politicized and rigorous survey of the depictions of ‘Oriental’ women in the writings of 18th, 19th and 20th century European travel books, memoirs, and guides about North Africa, Egypt, the Holy Land, and Turkey. It’s fascinating to note the degree to which the writers’ own prejudices about the region, Muslim culture, the veil, the harem -- and the place of women in society in general -- colored their descriptions and their conclusions. These skewed first-hand accounts then influenced or reinforced the stereotypes being embraced back home, and even though the sources have faded the perceptions endure today.” ADVENTUROUS WOMEN IN SOUTH EAST ASIA: Six Lives, edited by John Gullick

“Part of the terrific Oxford-in-Asia series, this easy-reading collection by various scholars examines the lives of 19th century Western women in the Asian tropics – pioneers like Sophia Raffles, the calamity-stricken wife of the British founder of Singapore, and Isabella Bird, the opinionated world traveler seeking to escape from civilization. It helped put into context my own struggling expatriate experience when I was living in steamy Malaysia... I especially appreciated reading about the dark side of these women’s lives, like the widely unknown and checkered past of Anna Leonowens, the famous governess hired by the King of Siam! Illustrated with fine engravings from the women’s own publications.”

DREAMING OF EAST: Western Women and the Exotic Allure of the Orient, by Barbara Hodgson

“For generations of Western women, Eastern travel has signified freedom. Yet in the more ‘liberal’ West this does not compute. How can the cloistered East be a place of emancipation? Through a series of portraits of 18th to 20th century women who traveled to the eastern Ottoman empire – Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Turkey – Hodgson demonstrates the calculus. Among Eastern liberties counted by women like Isabel Burton, the wife of adventurer Richard Burton: ‘the inconsequence of time’ and the loose clothing. The Canadian author is a book designer, and the engravings, paintings, sketches and photographs make this book a jewel to behold.”

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This appeared in the International Museum of Women site and elsewhere.

Designed & Conducted Culture Shock Session at AISEC

Drawing on my experiences as an expat, a foreign student, and the editor of a book about cultural journeys of self discovery, I have designed and conducted a session on Culture Shock at AISEC here in Istanbul for 75 outgoing international exchange students. Thanks to Ajda Mustafova, Chair, 5th AIESEC National Conference for the invitation.

Interviewed By Istanbullum Magazine

When did you move to Istanbul? What is the first memory you have about Istanbul? AA: My husband and I moved in 2003 and stayed in Ulus with my brother-in-law for a few months, so my impressions from those days are of the sun setting over the Topkapi Palace far in the distance as the family ate barbequed lamb chops on the balcony, an assembly line of kuzu izgara. Sprinkling dried marjoram and oregano on the chops. But my first memories started when I visited in 2000 ( I felt ages of winter chill emanating from AyaSofya’s old stones as I gazed up at the Byzantine mosaics). Then when I married in Istanbul the balmy summer of 2001, at Esma Sultan in Ortakoy, the memories punctuated by the flashbulbs of a glitzy Turkish wedding. The overall memory of Istanbul? A lot of kisses, for everyone, coming and going, every day, every night.

What does Istanbul mean to you? 

AA: Since I have a degree in Classical Greek, Roman and Near Eastern Archaeology,  Istanbul’s historical significance as the center of the ancient civilized world is never far from my consciousness. It’s a place of power and energy and ideas, and has been for centuries. There is no mistaking that this is an important place on the globe.  But as a New World woman from cutting edge California, I also love that with its heavy history it’s not musty and dead like a forgotten museum. I can appreciate its new layers of lives and dreams, and find modern day Istanbul to have more than its share of fabulous places, people and events.

Which part of the city do you live in? How do you like it?

AA: I lived in bohemian Cihangir for four years and loved my scenic view of the Bosphorus overlooking Kabatas ferry terminal. Perched on the cliff the view had all the energy of a transportation hub but at the same time was completely serene – and quiet, if you don’t count the taxicabs honking at all hours of the night! The proximity to Taksim and Istiklal was wonderful, and with the new tramway and metro extension, it really felt like the center of the world! My husband couldn’t take the commute to his Maslak office though so we just moved to Istinye, where we have a much more intimate view of the bay with its teal-colored water. I’m liking all the hillsides covered in wildflowers. But I’ll miss the cafes of Cihangir, like Miss Pizza, and Savoy Pastanesi for simit toast on Sundays and of course in a neighborhood so full of feisty street cats, the great veterinarians. I adopted my cat Bunny from Kazanci Sokagi, so where ever I go I’ll always have a bit of Cihangir in my heart, and in my home.

How does Istanbul look like from U.S.? Are there any misconceptions about the city?

AA: Physically I think the general image of Istanbul does not include so much water, waterways, vistas of water. The hills are also a surprise to many people.  It’s hard to conceive of a metropolis made of so many small villages, how Istanbul can go on for miles and still be Istanbul, even if each kilometer is like a new world.

Do you have any favorite spots in the city?

AA: My favorites are the ones I haven’t been to yet! They exist in my dream of Istanbul. There are so many places I yearn to go. Like the Ilhamur Kosku in Muradiye, the Beykoz pavilion, and Beylerbeyi Palace. The Horhor market in Eyup with its Levantine antiques. A strange restaurant in Gunesli specializing in huge platters of chicken wings.  Things you hear about, things you see from a distance, things you have to find a special time to do. The problem is more time I live in Istanbul, the longer my list grows.

Some of the stories take place in Istanbul in the book “Tales from the Expat Harem”. Is Istanbul a good setting for works of literature?

AA: I think so, (and for film too! Why aren’t there more films set in Istanbul?)  The Expat Harem tales set in Istanbul show that the city offers a colorful and diverse backdrop for personal histories, and adds true depth to the narrator’s every day life. When a young Guatemalan woman recognizes two hatun speaking Ladino on a Mecediyekoy bus, she feels pride in her Spanish linguistic connection -- and at the same time she acknowledges the chain of history that brought this medieval language to Istanbul.  What echoes in that moment is that the Guatemalan came to Istanbul through her own chain of history…

 What does Istanbul need? How would it be better?

AA: A more extensive Metro network, servicing coastal spots like Beskitas, Ortakoy and Bebek. Imagine how that would alleviate street traffic!

 What are your future writing projects? Is Istanbul somehow in them?

AA: Istanbul absolutely will play a role in many of my upcoming cultural essays, in fact the title of my travel memoir in progress is “Berkeley to Byzantium: The Reorientation of a West Coast Adventuress”. It’s about the physical (and metaphysical!) journey from my utopian hometown in California, around the world through classical Italy and the media worlds of New York and Hollywood, to the plantations and palaces of South East Asia, finally ending up in Istanbul. The challenge is to fully explain how my life has culminated in this incredibly meaningful place. Another challenge is to stay home and write when Istanbul beckons!

 What do you think about Istanbul being the “European Culture Capital for 2010”?

AA: It’s about time! It seems to me that Istanbul makes good use of its breathtaking monuments and historic settings for cultural activities (like concerts at Rumeli Hisari and the Aya Irini, and exhibits at the Darphane and Tophane-i Amire, and receptions at Feriye and Dolmabahce), and the yearlong festival will be a perfect opportunity to show off  to the world the city’s priceless heritage, and the life that the people of Istanbul inject into these wondrous spots.

How is the expat life in Istanbul? Is Istanbul an easy city for expat living? 

AA: There are tons of options for expatriates in Istanbul, social and business clubs and general communities, and lots of support networks and foreign language media. I’ve been an expat in Rome and Kuala Lumpur where I learned some expat survival techniques and put them into practice as soon as I arrived here.  I think Jennifer Gokmen would agree that making the anthology helped make sense of our own lives in Turkey as foreigners -- the Expat Harem is an apt metaphor for us.  The title positively reclaims the concept of the Eastern harem just as we consider ourselves and our writers inextricably wedded to Turkish culture, embedded in it, though forever foreign. The virtual walls are there: our initial lack of language skills, undeveloped understanding of the culture, and even some of the ethnocentricities that we cling to.  Luckily for us, Istanbul has a long history of welcoming foreigners, and being able to accomodate many different cultures and mindsets.

Spot-On. Literary. Insightful. My Book Expat Harem In Telegraph UK

"This is not just another anthology by expat wives who long to get in print," writes the veteran book author and publisher Jo Parfitt in the Telegraph UK.

"This is a wonderful book; beautifully written, thought-provoking and inspiring.

"Every essay is spot on, literary and insightful. Grouped into sections, they cover everything from relationships with Turks and non-Turks to the food, the music, the humour and the passion. Be ready to book a flight to Istanbul afterwards."

Thanks, Jo!

Cocktail Expat Harem Signing, 7th Annual Ladies Lunch, Bodrum Marina Yacht Club

From the Expat Harem blog: We were invited to give a presentation at the Marina Yacht Club for the 7th Annual Ladies’ Lunch, organized by and for the local expat population. The area has about 5,000 foreigners in residence.

Despite heavy thunderstorms early that morning, 120 women streamed into the event as rain and clouds gave way to sunshine. During the Buck Finns cocktail hour on the veranda, we signed books until they sold out.

We were thrilled to meet so many of Bodrum’s energetic and enterprising foreign women.

Among them were event organizers Jane Baxter, Christine Davies, Leslie Joy Rhoades, and Priscilla Windsor Brown, whose voluminous rolodexes played a part in the inception of this annual event; Dina Street of Zephyria Yachting; chef Angie Mitchell, whose book Secrets Of The Turkish Kitchen has been known to save cross-cultural marriages; Victoria Boz, an adventurous New Zealander; translator Antonella Culasso who claims to be “the only Italian in Bodrum!”; then there was fiesty Lucy Nazim, a Turkish Cypriot/British repat, who is following a path in neuro-linguistic programming; Duygu Nayir, the owner of seafront cafe Kırmızı; German yoga instructor and writer Monika Munzinger; one of the four Gillians present was inspired to begin writing the book she knows she has in her.