is a writer and newspaper columnist, with a professional background in development work in Asia, Africa and Europe. She remains an unrepentant idealist despite the existence of empirical evidence that suggests it might be better to think otherwise.Farah began writing fiction in the desperate hope that putting stories down on paper would send them on their way and out of her head. Her work has been published in the UK, US, Canada, Singapore, France, India, Nepal and her native Bangladesh. Forthcoming publications are planned in Germany and Afghanistan. Her story "Judgement Day" was Highly Commended in the Commonwealth Competition 2010, and “Getting There” placed second in the Oxford GEF Competition. Farah’s first short story collection, Fragments of Riversong has just been published by Daily Star Books. In 2012, she edited Lifelines, an anthology of new Bangladeshi writing for Zubaan Books. She is writer in residence at Commonwealth Writers, and has written a number of posts that can be read online at: http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/get-inspired/writer-in-residence/