Another day, another email sliding into my inbox. Another invariably white, male producer or director writing to me. Looking to make a short or feature or TV show, or a storyline on an existing TV show, or an adaptation of…

I grew up in Turkey. This is what I remember. There were several accents… and some stood out more than others. My paternal grandmother spoke in what is known in Turkey as ‘Istanbul’ Turkish. There was a melody to it….

In conservative societies in the MENA region there are a whole set of tools devoted to keeping a girl a ‘virgin’ – not just sexually, but in all aspects of life. Young girls must not open their eyes to anything…

When I was nine years old I naively committed to praying namaz five times a day. This  commitment quickly transitioned from a choice to a responsibility. My motivation for prayer turned from childish excitement to guilt from missing a prayer….

I married the love of my life. We were together for a little over three years before we got married. This ensured that we knew we were compatible in every way. We have now been married for another three years….

Soft powers is an exhibit that builds upon work and themes that I’ve been exploring for the past four years. These include coming of age, nostalgia, and the tensions of growing into adulthood within a diasporic community – relayed specifically…

I wanted to reconnect with my roots. I was doing a lot of travelling, meeting lots of different people and indulging in a multitude of cultures, cuisines and languages. A few awkward questions about my background that I couldn’t answer…

I first got my period when I was in 6th grade. To everybody’s surprise, I didn’t tell my mom. I hid it for the first month. I don’t clearly remember how. I was scared of revealing it to her. Even…

Few people would ever have thought that one day we would all be facing a pandemic where we had to stay home in order not to get infected by an invisible monster called a coronavrius. Streets have become empty; stores…

Ramadan plus Covid19, while living with a strict family is an ex-Muslim’s nightmare. There is a large group of people, mostly teenagers and young adults, who have been living double lives. They are closeted ex-Muslims – people born in an…

Week? Another one just went by. The days and nights ebb and flow. When they flow it seems almost normal. There is a structure. I get up, I dress, I make my bed and my coffee. A meeting starts. People…

I grew up in South London in a four bedroom house with my parents, four sisters and one brother. Many of us shared one bedroom. The eldest sisters had their own room. My brother had the smallest room in the…

In my region, parents keep their daughters separate from boys, starting from the age of eight, if not before. This happened in my own family. We were scrupulously kept apart from boys to the extent that we didn’t even know…

When I was 10 years old, my mother used to tell me that being a woman is no different to being a superwoman. She had endured decades of oppression by her husband and in-laws – as women so often do…

I am 38 years old and a proud Ex-Muslim. It has been over 15 years since I unapologetically stopped wearing the hijab. Before that, I had fought battles with it, and against it. This story is about the enforcement of…