The Woman Who Fell From the Sky is a memoir of the most challenging year of my life, the year I spent as editor of the Yemen Observer newspaper in Sana’a, Yemen. It is a story of my own personal growth as well as the story of the transformation of the newspaper and my staff.

In the spring of 2006, I was working as a senior editor of The Week, a national newsweekly based in New York, when my high-school sweetheart contacted me out of the blue and asked if I would come train a group of rising young journalists at the Yemen Observer, an independent, English-language newspaper located in the capital city of Sana’a.

In Yemen, I found a newspaper staff of total amateurs incapable of separating opinion from news, who thought that reporting meant plagiarizing articles from the Internet, and who were desperately hungry for training. Never before in my journalism career had I felt so useful, every day. When my fledgling reporters—and more importantly, the owner of the paper—asked me to stay and be their editor, I couldn’t turn them down. And so, with little knowledge of the Arab world, I found myself in a position of power in one of the most conservative countries in the Middle East.

I was faced with the multiple challenge of learning how to manage a newsroom, train novice journalists, and navigate my way through an alien culture, all at once. Our progress—mine, my reporters’, and the paper’s—was not linear. There were at least as many dramatic setbacks as there were improvements. But eventually, small miracles happened. My reporters gained a grasp of the rudiments of journalism and began turning in better stories. I wrestled the paper into a regular schedule, which had never happened before. And I was forced to learn patience—not only with my reporters, but with the constant electrical outages, water shortages, lack of organization, and a culture that insists on moving at its own pace—and where a typical excuse for missing work was: “I have to go pick up my machine gun so I can go to my village and defend my land.”.

My book explores the power struggle between me and the male editor I replaced; the clash of western and Yemeni work ethics; the self-censorship we were forced to employ to keep the building from getting bombed; my friendship with a feisty female ace reporter; and the courtroom drama that unfolded after the Yemen Observer published the incendiary cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

This book will also take readers into the seldom-seem world of day-to-day life in a conservative Muslim country—including places men will never be allowed to go, such as women’s wedding halls and homes. It offers insight into the challenges of living in such a country as a woman and a westerner. Along the way, it will bring to life the wonder, mystery, and beauty of life in an utterly foreign place, as well as the humor inherent in being such an outsider.

Just as the book exposes both the light and dark sides of life in a conservative Muslim country, I don’t spare myself criticism or embarrassing stories. I’ve suffered from being a hard-driving person in a languorous culture. I’ve lost my temper, wept in front of my boss, and fainted in the middle of my first dinner party.

While digging ever more deeply into the lives of my reporters, I also learned a few things about my own ideals and capabilities, while accomplishing things I had never even considered possible in my former life. Six months into my job, putting an issue of the paper to bed 12 hours earlier than I initially did felt like a major triumph. Earning the respect and love of my staff—despite my mercurial moods and impossible demands—was an even greater victory. And while I cannot imagine ever converting to Islam, I now know the comfort and anonymity provided by the voluminous folds of a black abaya.

This memoir will be among the first to investigate the pragmatic and ideological challenges facing journalists in the Arab world, especially in a poor, desperate country struggling toward democracy.

The Woman Who Fell From the Sky is a classic story of a culture clash, while at the same time a narrative of breaking down boundaries and finding friendship in unlikely places.