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Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gökmen
ExpatWomen's Interview with Anastasia and Jennifer
ExpatWomen: Firstly, congratulations to both of you on the very publication of your book, Tales from the Expat Harem. Choosing, collating, compiling and editing so many stories into one, succinct anthology must have taken many, many hours, yes?
Anastasia and Jennifer: Thank you so much! We never measured the time we spent in hours – it was months and months of full time work! It took several months to create and polish the material we used for our call for submissions which described the book and the chapters we envisioned. Then after we spread the call far and wide to groups of women, writers, travelers, expatriates, Turkey expats and Turkophiles, women began introducing themselves and sharing their stories and their ideas.
ExpatWomen: Can you tell us a little about where the inspiration came from to embark on the ambitious Expat Harem project and in your own words, a little about the project?
Jennifer: In an international women’s writing group in Istanbul, we realized we were all writing about our Turkish experiences. Collected, we hoped they might begin to piece together the puzzle that is Turkey.
Anastasia: The anthology is part of an emerging worldwide genre that should be called "expatriate literature" –writing about life from outside one’s homeland does not necessarily mean that one is writing from a state of travel. Expat Harem women are coping with real life issues in a foreign culture – assimilating into friendship, neighborhood, and sometimes even wifehood and motherhood.
Jennifer: Also, the collection’s concept makes sense of our own lives in Turkey. With the title we wanted to positively reclaim the concept of the Eastern harem, which has been the subject of erroneous Western stereotype for quite some time. Much like the imported brides of the Ottoman sultans, we consider our writers and ourselves inextricably wedded to Turkish culture, even if we’ll remain forever foreign.
Anastasia: This is an important point and I’m sure Expat Women worldwide can identify with the concept of being confined by a foreign culture, especially those newly-arrived. Here in Turkey we aren’t constricted by physical walls of the harem, but the virtual walls are often there, formed by the initial lack of language skills, undeveloped understanding of the culture, or even the ethnocentricities that some of us cling to when we first arrive.
ExpatWomen: What was the process that you followed for promoting the idea, receiving the stories and selecting the successful contributions?
Anastasia and Jennifer: We did most of the work through the internet. We entered into relationships with everyone who came to us (more than 100 women from 14 nations and most of them not professional writers), and over the course of several months helped them fashion a personal tale that revealed as much about the woman and her own culture as the country she uncovered. We didn’t reject anyone outright, but there were some who weren’t ready to really explore their issues or become characters in their stories. In the end, the 32 women in the book are the “survivors” of a long editorial process—and we salute them!!
We only asked that the story be honest and balanced. We looked for a certain depth of understanding about both the Turkish culture and the writer’s own cultural assumptions. We asked, “What did this experience teach you about Turkey, and what did it show you about yourself?”
The end result is a collection of stories that spans the entire country and four decades from contributors across the world: North and Central America, Australia, Britain and Ireland, Holland and Pakistan. They came to Turkey for a myriad of reasons – as women pursuing studies or work, a belief, a love, an adventure. Whether an archaeologist at Troy, a Christian missionary in Istanbul, a Peace Corps volunteer in Erzurum, a journalist on the Iraqi border or a broken-hearted girl in Bursa, what is revealed in their stories is that each felt an affinity for the country and its people.
ExpatWomen: How did you manage to ‘sell’ your idea to a publisher and how much time did the publishing process take?
Anastasia: I used to work in publishing in New York so our learning curve was not as steep as it could have been. We took the traditional route and created a standard book proposal. We sold the book to three publishers (for different language or territory rights), in varying degrees of completion. But from the original sale to a publisher in Istanbul to the last edition printed in North America (Seal Press in March 2006), two years elapsed. Publishing is a very slow business!!
ExpatWomen: From your website and blogspot, it’s clear that you have been quite proactive in the promotion of the book… even to the point of travelling to the United States for a 49-day-cross-country road-show. Can you please share with us, some of the lessons that you’ve learned in the promotion process and why you think your promotions have been so successful?
Anastasia: I think the main secret is getting other people involved, providing something of value to them and then they are happy to help in any way they can. We could not have done this without everyone we met along the way, in 22 cities across the United States. We spoke at consulates and cultural festivals, to business and social groups, NGOs and academic conferences, in independent and major chain bookstores and to individual book clubs. We met with 800 fellow Turkey enthusiasts including diplomats, businesspeople, academics, travelers, journalists, filmmakers, cultural trainers and lovers of expatriate literature.
Jennifer: The great turnouts (an average of 28 people at each event, with some topping 60 and 70!) also would not have been possible without thorough research of our target markets; knowing who might be interested and how to contact them is key! There was much forward planning involved to set the schedule months in advance, constant follow up, tending our mailing list and web presences, and the generous support of people like our tour sponsor Demet Sabancı Çetindoğan (a top businesswoman in Istanbul), the Turkish foreign ministry, and each and every one of our event sponsors across America.
Anastasia: We also owe a debt to all the lovely people who put us up in their homes to help cut costs, the readers who invited us out to dinner and introduced us to their friends and family, and so many along our tour route who crossed our paths and spontaneously decided to attend our readings, or review the book, or write about it in the newspaper. Making the book relevant to as many people as possible was perhaps why it is now being studied at four North American universities, in avariety of departments. There are many beneficial ways to approach the material, whether you consider it a sample of 21st century travel literature, a feminist tract, a sociological study, a cultural conversation, or pure pleasure reading. |
ExpatWomen: What press and/or events have given you the most satisfaction?
Jennifer:
We were touched at the New York Consulate launch of our US book tour when a Turkish man stood up and announced to a crowd of 80 that he was using our book to teach his American-born children about their culture, about the natural gentility of Turks. Apparently his kids didn’t believe Dad’s nostalgia for the homeland but could relate to the mindsets of the expat women, many of whom were raised in America. That he thought we successfully depicted an image of Turkey that aligned with his own was an overwhelming validation, and a sentiment that resonated in audiences throughout our cross-country tour.
We were certainly honored when top travel publications like National Geographic Traveler and Lonely Planet recommended the book, and when major newspapers like the Globe & Mail in Canada, the Daily Telegraph in the UK, and the International Herald Tribune in Paris highlighted Tales from the Expat Harem.
ExpatWomen: So, what’s in store for 2007-2008? More book tours, guest talks and/or another book?
Jennifer: We will continue to pursue Expat Harem-related projects, like a documentary version of the book for American television. And we definitely will keep making appearances and presentations both throughout Turkey, in Europe and in North America. We’re also collaborating with scholars on symbiotic projects to illustrate the historical and contemporary significance of foreign female views of the Near East.
Anastasia: We’ve given talks on cultural sensitivity for exchange programs, and have been invited to participate in Turkish cultural festivals in different countries. We also continue to receive invitations from the diplomatic missions in Turkey to give presentations to their personnel and a group of Turkish women in Ottawa Canada will be sponsoring us for a visit and presentation in the Fall, while minibook tours in different regions are always in the cards. We are also supporting a possible men’s version of the anthology…
Jennifer: In 2008 we may do a second volume and at that time we may expand the definition of the Expat Harem to women in other countries. To get on our mailing list about this either visit our website () or write to us at .
ExpatWomen: Thank you very much Anastasia and Jennifer. May your successes only continue.
Jennifer: Thank you for the interview, ExpatWomen! We are honored for this opportunity to speak to our expat women peers around the world. We feel the global community of female expatriates has a lot of wisdom and strength to share, and we can all benefit from our sisters’ experiences. We look forward to hearing your stories! |
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