Katy Gillett

Katy Gillett is an Afar contributor who has spent the past 20 years working across newsrooms in the U.K. and Middle East. Born in Britain and raised in the Gulf, she has lived in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Dubai and has covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from the UAE’s property boom to swimming with manta rays in the Maldives. Her full-time roles have included head of Arts & Lifestyle at the National newspaper in Abu Dhabi and managing editor at Time Out GCC. She’s also the founder of Desert Prose, a newsletter and community for independent media professionals living in—or interested in—the Middle East and North Africa.