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 also reviews books on Goodreads and @Indigobookshelf on Bookstagram. She is also a lawyer, has worked as a corporate attorney at Proskauer Rose LLP, and is a board member of two education-based institutions, one of them is Northwestern University’s Library Board of Governors. She was also a board member of Third Street Music School Settlement for six years and is 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 plans to publish this year, three historical novels (the historical novel series Esma: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire), and plans to publish Book 1 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.