Anastasia M. Ashman

Infobox_Celebrity
name = Anastasia Ashman


birth_date = Birth date and age|1964|8|8|mf=y
birth_place = Berkeley, California
occupation = Writer
website = [http://www.expatharem.com/ expatharem.com]

Anastasia M. Ashman (born 1964) is an American author.

Background

Ashman was born in Berkeley, California, graduated from Berkeley High School in 1982, and received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College in Classical Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern Archaeology in 1986. An expatriate for 10 years, she has resided in Rome and Kuala Lumpur and currently lives with her Turkish husband in Istanbul.

Ashman spent a decade in New York and Los Angeles media and entertainment circles, working in operations and administration for literary agents and producers of film, television, and Broadway theatre.

Career

Ashman is a cultural essayist, editor and cultural producer. Her arts, travel and culture journalism and criticism has appeared in a wide range of publications, from international business newspapers and newsmagazines, like the Hong Kong-based Dow Jones properties "The Wall Street Journal Asia" and "Far Eastern Economic Review", to the"The Village Voice" and "National Geographic Traveler". She has written about Nyonya food, reviewed "Tropical Classical", an essay collection by Pico Iyer and covered a posthumous anthology by Brion Gysin. For [http://www.cornucopia.net/ "Cornucopia"] , the glossy magazine for connoisseurs of Turkey, she has written about the cultural contortions of joining a Turkish family.

Along with American writer Jennifer Eaton Gökmen, she is the co-editor of the nonfiction anthology "" (Emeryville: Seal Press, 2006). The anthology, by 29 expatriate women from five nations, spans the length and breadth of Turkey as well as the last four decades as scholars, artists, missionaries, journalists, entrepreneurs and Peace Corps volunteers assimilate into Turkish friendship, neighborhood, wifehood, and motherhood. The expatriate literature collection has risen to national top ten bestselling spots in the US and the UK, and is also published in Turkey, (Istanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2005) where it was a #1 national bestseller in January 2006, and has been translated into Turkish as "Türkçe Sevmek" (Istanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2005), with a foreword on womanhood, national identity and non-belonging by the controversial and award-winning Turkish novelist Elif Shafak.

Ashman's personal essays appear in the humor travel collection "The Thong Also Rises: Further Misadventures From Funny Women on the Road" (Palo Alto: Travelers’ Tales, 2005) and in "The Subway Chronicles: Scenes From Life in New York" (New York: Plume-Penguin, 2006).

The author, along with co-editor Jennifer Eaton Gokmen, was [http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24404193#24404193 "interviewed"] on NBC's Today Show, on its annual travel segment Where in the World is Matt Lauer in May 2008.

Along with Janera Soerel, the founder of Global Nomad Salons and [http://www.janera.com "an online magazine and members-only social network"] , which explore issues of global citizenship and hybrid-identities, Anastasia has co-produced Istanbul's 1st Global Nomad Salon, part of a worldwide series of intellectual dinner parties where diners discuss issues of global culture and economics.

Works

* [http://www.expatharem.com"Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey"]
* [http://expat-harem.blogspot.com/ Official Expat Harem Blog]
* [http://www.dogankitap.com.tr/kitap.asp?id=731 Doğan Kitap] , Turkish publisher of "Tales from the Expat Harem" and Turkish version, [http://www.dogankitap.com.tr/kitap.asp?id=719 "Türkçe Sevmek"]
* [http://www.sealpress.com/travelbooks/index.html Seal Press] , North American publisher of "Tales from the Expat Harem"
* [http://www.thongalsorises.com "The Thong Also Rises: Further Misadventures from Funny Women on the Road"]
* [http://www.thesubwaychronicles.com "The Subway Chronicles: Scenes from Life in New York"]

Awards/Honors

*From the international relations group Daughters of Atatürk, Ashman and her Expat Harem co-editor were honored with the 2006 "Woman of Distinction Award", an annual title bestowed on women who have "demonstrated vision, leadership, innovation and professionalism" in "giving their talents to the international Turkish community". Other 2006 honorees include Güler Sabancı, Caroline Finkel, and [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195086775/ Leslie Peirce.]

ee also

* [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/features/48hours_istanbul0607/istanbul.html "National Geographic Traveler" "July/August 2006 48 Hours in Istanbul"]
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/global/2007/01/31/810Expreview.xml "Daily Telegraph (UK)" "January 31, 2007 Expat Book Reviews"]
* [http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/12/news/ristanbook.php "International Herald Tribune" "December 12, 2006 Recommended reading on Turkish culture"]
* [http://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/0506/books.html "Perceptive Travel" "May/June 2006 Book Reviews"]
* [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/hubsv3/Travel/travelPages?activities=travel%20books "Globe and Mail (Canada)" "April 2006 Travel Books"]
* [http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=&vid=ff8178ff-13ae-42f3-9c0a-18e4d12a99e2 "The Today Show", NBC television "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" May 1, 2008]
* [http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=108488 "Turkish Daily News" "Istanbul's Call to Global Nomads" June 28, 2008]