Lorna Tychostup

Lorna Tychostup is senior editor of Chronogram magazine, a freelance writer, photographer, editor and Iraq consultant. Since February 2003, she has visited Iraq repeatedly collectively spending almost a year working in the country. Tychostup has recently finishing her masters at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs (concentration: International Relations and the Middle East); has acted as consultant to Nature Iraq [natureiraq.org], an Iraqi environmental non-government organization (NGO) currently working to base-line the environmental conditions within Iraq in support of socio-economic development and reconstruction efforts; and is working on a proposal for her first book.

Her photographs of Iraq and its people, before and during the war, have been exhibited throughout the country, and her PowerPoint presentations have intrigued and informed audiences at colleges and other organizations from New York to Oregon. Her work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, YES!, Z Magazine, and Major League Baseball Magazine. She has been interviewed extensively, on both radio and TV, including Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes” and NBC’s “Nightly News.”

Lorna’s reputation is built on her ability to report stories that go beyond mainstream media coverage. During her trips to Iraq, she has opted to get as close to the people (and hence the truth) as possible. Living in modest unprotected hotels and traveling in beat-up cabs, she has found her way from the ordinary people in the street, to the squatters living in bombed-out government-owned properties, to high-ranking state ministers, to the judges of the new Iraq who have chosen to uphold the law of the land at incredible risk to their lives.

Walking among the Iraqi people—the powerful and the destitute alike—at four crucial historical moments, beholden to no editorial authority or political agenda, Lorna Tychostup has had an unparalleled opportunity to truly comprehend very complex developments. The perspective she has earned is unique and comprehensive Her haunting photographs and poignant stories enable her audiences to share the tragedy, the struggle and the triumph of the various communities that make up the Iraqi people. Her body of work is essential for anyone hoping to understand any aspect—domestic, political, or otherwise—of what is currently the world’s most conspicuous crisis.