Makler, Irris

PERSONAL:

Born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; daughter of Ruth Macklin (an accountant).Education: University of New South Wales, B.A., LL.B.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Kate Jones, International Creative Management, Oxford House, 76 Oxford St., London W1D 1BS, England. E-mail—irris@bigfoot.com.

CAREER:

British Broadcasting Corp., London, England, researcher and producer for BBC-TV, 1988-92; Channel 9 (television network), Australia, producer, 1992; Australian Broadcasting Corp., Sydney, New South Wales, producer and reporter for ABC-TV, 1993-2000, Moscow correspondent, 2000-21; freelance correspondent from Moscow, Russia, 2001-02, and from the Middle East, based in Jerusalem, Israel, 2003—. Contributor to broadcasts produced by other networks in England, Germany, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, including National Public Radio.

WRITINGS:

Our Woman in Kabul (biography), Bantam Australia (Milsons Point, New South Wales, Australia), 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Guns and Roses (tentative title), on women in the Middle East.

SIDELIGHTS:

Irris Makler told CA: "My primary motivation is to inform and to share the unique experiences my work gives me access to. The book I am presently researching is full of stories not usually heard from the Middle East. They won't get into a nightly news bulletin, but they are actually richer and much more fascinating than what does.

"My writing process for my first book was simply to sit at my computer for sixteen hours a day for six weeks until the book was finished, and to revise heavily twice over the next twelve months. My second book is more complex and requires a different approach: immersion and then a break, immersion and then a break, over a period of months.

"I write a lot about women and the female experience of life. It fascinates me to see how women work the hardest and suffer the most in almost every society I visit. Women's strength, flexibility, and powers of endurance—and humor in the face of all they may have to deal with—are less frequently documented by male reporters. I see those qualities as vital to women, actually their essence, and seek to honor their lives and experiences.

"The thing that has most surprised me about the process of writing for a book, as opposed to writing for journalism, is how much reworking is needed. I think of it as being like producing a pearl. By the end you have something wonderful, but if you look in halfway, all you see is a grain of sand and lots of the oyster's secretions."