Ola Salem is an Egyptian American writer based in Virginia, USA. She is Managing Editor of New Lines Magazine, and a member of the magazine’s launch team. 
 

Ola grew up in England, and spent some early years in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. She moved with her family to the United Arab Emirates and studied at UAE University, where she majored in journalism and minored in Film. In her final year, she completed an internship at The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, where she wrote cover stories for the then-supplemental magazine, M, and wrote stories for the news and other sections of the paper. A few months later she joined full-time as a national reporter, covering breaking news. She soon transitioned into various beats to cover education and labor, but finally settled as political reporter, where she covered the country’s political news and the quasi-parliament, the Federal National Council (FNC) for the next five years.

She moved to the United States in 2016. She worked as a freelance producer for Al Jazeera English from the U.S. capital, covering a wide range of stories and field reporting and editing. She completed a master’s in Writing at New York University, taking courses in rhetoric, information architecture, website design and user experience, and writing her thesis on the Middle East media landscape.

A longtime journalist, Ola has written for Foreign Policy magazine, The Guardian, Washington Post, New York Post, Al Jazeera English and the National. Her debut book, “The Lost History of Perfume,” comes out in April, 2027 (One Signal Publishing/Atria).

Reach Ola directly via email: osalem@newlinesmag.com