About

Picture by Nick Tucker
I write books, plays, TV and film. 

How to be a Heroine (Chatto & Windus, 2014) is a reading memoir about going back to the literary heroines who shaped me.

Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life (Chatto & Windus, 2017) is my encounter with the "other" Brontë sister, always described as sweet and stoic, but who I found to be fierce and radical, with much to teach us about how to live.

How to Date a Feminist (premiered at the Arcola Theatre, published by Nick Hern Books, 2016) is a twist on the Hollywood rom com and a passionate modern love story. It has also been produced in Poland, Mexico, Germany, the US and Turkey.

Cling to me Like Ivy (premiered at the Birmingham Rep Theatre, published by Nick Hern Books, 2011) is an offbeat comedy drama about an Orthodox Jewish woman rebelling against her roots...and about love, hair and tree-sitting.

My other plays include Love is Not New in This Country (BBC Radio 3), Operation Magic Carpet (Polka Theatre), The Only Jew in England (East 15 / Queens' Theatre Hornchurch), Starlore for Beginners and Other Plays (Theatre 503) and Patching Havoc (Theatre 503). I was a founder member of The Miniaturists, for whom I wrote four short plays.

I worked as a script editor Paddington and in the writers' room on Paddington 2.

I've written prefaces to Amber Reeves's A Lady and her Husband (Persephone Books) and to Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey (Vintage).

As a journalist, I write for the Guardian, Literary Review, the TLS, Independent, The Pool and more.

I was chair of judges for the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Award 2016.

I am a MacDowell Colony Fellow.

I am the daughter of Iraqi Jewish refugees and grew up in London where I still live, with my husband and son.

My MENA arts profile is here.

My British Arab Writers Group profile is here.