Professional Experience
I am an Istanbul-based freelance journalist and editor with more than 20 years of experience in feature, news, and lifestyle coverage for print and online media. I specialize in environmental, social, and urban issues, as well as arts, culture, and travel. My work has been published by BBC Wildlife, California, CityLab, The Christian Science Monitor, Culinary Backstreets, Discover, Disegno, GOOD, Hyperallergic, Lonely Planet, MORE, The National, Salon, Sierra, TakePart, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Time Out Istanbul, TreeHugger, Wired, Women's Running, Yale Environment 360, and Zester Daily, among many other print and online outlets. I am open to discussing new opportunities (freelance or staff) in any location.
Expertise
- Writer 20 Years
- Editor 20 Years
- Copy Editor 20 Years
Specialty
- Environment & Nature 20 Years
- Politics 20 Years
- Travel 10 Years
Industries
- Magazine - Large Consumer/National magazines 10 Years
- Newspaper - National 3 Years
- Online/new media 20 Years
Foreign Language Skills
Intermediate Turkish
Equipment
Laptop, digital camera, digital recorder
Art and Design
Back to School
(Disegno 9/27/2018)
The fourth edition of the Istanbul Design Biennial draws on types of knowledge that are generally little-valued in standard design education.
Artists Fill Six-Story Istanbul House with 672 Hours of Performance Art
(Hyperallergic 3/15/2018)
The house will become a research space and library in country where performance art remains underdeveloped, and many artists fear persecution.
Emerging Artists Look Inward at Istanbul's Mamut Art Project
(Selections 4/30/2018)
Unease, loneliness, isolation and self-questioning – along with glimpses of resilience and re-creation – were among the common themes of what artistic director Tuba Kocakaya called a very “introverted, autobiographical” edition of the annual fair, reflecting the mood in a country that has been undergoing political and social upheaval.
An Archaeology of Design
(Disegno 10/27/2016)
Istanbul plays host to a design biennial that prioritises contemplation and reflection over conventional design objects and processes.
Food and Drink
Farewell Lokanta Maya: Istanbul and Local Culinary Pioneer Hit Hard Times
(Culinary Backstreets 9/9/2016)
A string of terror attacks and ongoing strife in Turkey have led to dramatic drops in tourism and changes in the dining habits of Istanbul locals, both of which took their toll on Lokanta Maya’s business over the past year. With no upswing in sight, chef/owner Didem ?enol decided to shutter the restaurant’s doors at the end of July.
Basta Street Food Bar: Gourmet to the People
(Culinary Backstreets 11/9/2016)
Dürüm is the specialty at Basta Street Food Bar, but you won’t find a smoky grill inside this tiny Kad?köy storefront. With its bright turquoise counter, tile-patterned floor, and steel-topped, light-wood stools, Basta looks more like a hip café than a traditional kebab joint.
Beyond Baklava
(Fare 5/29/2017)
To eat in Istanbul, whether its current residents realise it or not, is to taste a broad swath of the world and centuries of history, and the city’s sweets—many of which originated during the Ottoman era—are no exception.
Cherries on Top
(Morning Calm (Korean Air in-flight) 9/1/2018)
Turkey leads the world in cherry production, but the fruit’s role in its kitchens has dwindled over the decades. Now, a culinary rediscovery of this local bounty may be in the works.
Urban Issues
Why DIY Public Spaces Are Starting to Take Off in Turkey
(CityLab 2/10/2015)
A small but growing movement is positioning itself as an alternative to the massive development projects currently (and controversially) reshaping Turkey’s biggest cities. In the wake of so many top-down, large-scale redevelopment efforts with little to no community input, these designers and builders are focusing on human-scale, easily replicable urban improvements that are responsive to local residents’ needs.
Contested Spaces
(Disegno 11/1/2017)
Istanbul's long-running battles over public space and urban liveability have now been thrown into sharp relief by a decade-and-a-half-long building boom that has shifted demographics and living habits, and in so doing helped to inspire a new generation of architects, planners and designers.
The 'Most Hopeful' New Housing in Turkey
(CityLab 2/23/2018)
Twenty years after being displaced by an earthquake, families in Düzce, Turkey, are getting homes that they helped design and build themselves.
Violence, Tear Gas Greet Protests to Save One of the Last Public Parks in Central Istanbul
(CityLab 5/31/2013)
The battle over Gezi Park has become a symbol of opposition to the city's massive urban upheaval.
Travel and Outdoors
Explore: Waitomo Caves
(Sierra 5/1/2009)
It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the blackness, but once they do, the dark erupts with light. Bright bluish pinpoints cluster into constellations over our heads as we float down the Waitomo River--some 50 feet underground.
What Is It Really Like To Run In Iran?
(Women's Running 2/2/2016)
Excitement around the announcement late last year of the first international marathon in Iran quickly turned to dismay for women runners as they learned that the event would be open to male athletes only. But as a recent visitor to the country discovered, Iranian women runners aren’t just encountering obstacles—they’re also finding freedom.
Fodor's Go List 2018: Armenia
(Fodor's 11/15/2017)
This tiny Caucasus country has an outsize wealth of history, culture, and hospitality.
Exploring Istanbul’s hip, historical Fener and Balat neighbourhoods
(Lonely Planet 3/1/2018)
Hidden behind the busy road that runs along the western bank of ?stanbul’s Golden Horn, the intertwined neighbourhoods of Fener and Balat have a rich history dating back to Byzantine times. These days, past and present mingle in colourful, maze-like streets, where third-wave coffee shops and design boutiques sit next to traditional tea gardens and tradesmen’s workshops.
Politics and Social Issues
Turkey’s Building Boom Takes Toll on Worker Safety
(IPS 6/8/2014)
Worker safety issues in Turkey’s mining industry have been the subject of a national outcry following the mid-May deaths of at least 301 workers in one deadly incident in a coal mine in Soma, a town in western Turkey. But the country’s construction sector, which has been a key driver of Turkey’s economy as it boomed over much of the last decade, is no less perilous for workers.
‘We Want Our Jobs Back’: Turkish Workers Protest Post-Coup Purges
(Equal Times 12/30/2016)
Tens of thousands of public-sector employees have been removed from their posts in Turkey following a failed military coup in July, a series of ongoing purges that the government says are necessary for the country’s security. Many of the dismissed civil servants believe that they have instead been targeted for their union activity.
Turkey ploughs on with controversial €1.2 billion dam project
(Equal Times 11/14/2018)
A controversial €1.2 billion dam project in Turkey threatens to displace tens of thousands of people across the Tigris Valley and submerge 12,000 years of history in Hasankeyf.
Science, Interrupted
(Discover 9/1/2017)
War and strife have uprooted many researchers. Can their life’s work be saved?
Environment
New solidarity in struggle to protect Turkey’s ‘life spaces’
(Mongabay 6/19/2015)
Emerging regional and national networks seek to build connections between local communities and provide support to their fights against dams, mines, and other environmental threats.
Dammed, dirty, drained by war: can Iraq's Tigris River be restored?
(The Christian Science Monitor 10/17/2013)
Nature Iraq wants to restore the Tigris, which contributed to the birth of agriculture about 7,000 years ago, to its free-flowing, clean former self. The environmental group is swimming upstream.
The Olive and the Power Plant
(Sierra 9/1/2015)
Turkey's rush to build coal plants comes at the expense of its most beloved culinary ingredient
In Istanbul’s Ancient Gardens, A Battle for Future Harvests
(Yale Environment 360 2/25/2016)
Development pressures are threatening Istanbul’s centuries-old gardens, which have produced food for the city’s markets since Byzantine times. A coalition of gardeners and environmentalists is fighting to preserve them.
Culture and History
Fathers of Invention
(Wired 6/1/2009)
In the Middle Ages, while Europeans were busy warring, plundering, and burning heretics at the stake, Muslim scholars were inventing the most advanced devices of the day. They refined the scientific method, developed effective cardiac drugs, and built celestial observatories—yet over time their contributions were largely forgotten.
Peeling Back a City’s Layers
(Discover 9/1/2015)
Underground transit projects offer archaeologists rare opportunities to dig into historic urban centers—but with the clock ticking.
Paradise Lost?
(Discover 9/1/2016)
Turkey’s Neolithic city of Çatalhöyük may have been an orderly society built on tolerance and equality — until it fell apart.
The Secrets Beneath a Suburb
(Discover 11/1/2017)
Experts are uncovering millennia of history under a Turkish megacity’s outskirts.