Yelda is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and has worked in journalism for many years.  She was a reporter at People Magazine, a staff reporter at InStyle Magazine, and has written or worked for such publications as Self, Lucky, Elle, Parents.com, The Huffington Post, The Bump, and The Turkish Daily News.  She is also a lawyer and has worked as a corporate attorney.  Yelda’s love for reading and writing is in everything she does including her position as a board member of Northwestern University’s Library Board of Governors.  She has also served on the board of various educational institutions and is currently the Vice President and founding member of Project Alive & Kicking, a foundation devoted to empowering and educating pregnant women for healthy births. 

Yelda has written a memoir, a children’s book, which she hopes to publish soon under a pen name, three historical novels (the historical novel series Esma: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire), and plans to publish Book I of her historical novel series this year.

Yelda was born in Izmir, Turkey and lives in New York City with her husband, two children and two dogs.