Author and poet, Elsa Marston Harik has lived in Bloomington, Indiana since the 1960s with her husband, the late professor Iliya Harik, and their three sons.  Thanks to trips to the Middle East connected with her husband's work and her own interests, she specializes in writing for young people about that region and has produced much of her work in the hopes that it will help young Americans acquire a better understanding of the Middle East, past and present. On this program, she reads an excerpt of the story "In Line" from her latest book Santa Claus in Baghdad - And Other Stories about Teens in the Arab World (Indiana University Press, 2008).

A independent film based on the title story of her book will be shown on Sunday, December 21, 2008 at 3 p.m. in the auditorium of the Monroe County Public Library in Bloomington, Indiana.

Past works include The Ugly Goddess, a fantasy novel set in ancient Egypt, Women in the Middle East: Tradition and Change, a nonfiction book she coauthored with her eldest son, Ramsay M. Harik, and Muhammad of Mecca, Prophet of Islam, a historical biography based on reports of Muhammad's life.