★ A dynamic meditation on adulthood, death and aging told by an unprepared Generation X woman!

★At the age of 50, Marga Orti, a former journalist with rich experience, wrote about contemplating the eternal questions of life, maturity and loss. She delved deeply into those truths that even hormonal changes cannot alter.

★This essay is sharp and humorous in style, which can resonate with all people at this age or those about to face this age, helping readers not feel lonely at turning points in life and providing companionship.

WTF: Woman Turning F*fty is a collection of savagely personal ‘postcards’—or eclectic experiential essays—from a former journalist on the margins of middle age.

Pondering timeless questions about life, maturity, and loss, Marga Ortigas dips into universal truths that not even hormonal changes can alter. Or can they? These rants—oops, we mean, writings—will hopefully help others on the cusp of, gulp, middle age (or other life transitions) feel less alone.

And you, yes you who have read this far, surely you are also grappling with uncertainty—don’t we all? So if you’d like some company . . . or perhaps simply want a laugh, WTF are you waiting for? This is for you, too.

Marga Ortigas

Marga Ortigas has travelled the world as a journalist for three decades, with a career spanning five continents and two of the largest global news networks. After getting her start in the Philippines, she joined CNN in London, working across Europe and covering the war in Iraq from its inception. In 2006, she returned to Manila and the Asia Pacific region, reporting from the frontlines of armed conflict and climate change as senior correspondent for Al Jazeera. Her extensive coverage of the Muslim rebellion in the southern Philippines was recognised by the International Committee of the Red Cross for Humanitarian Reporting.
A British Council Chevening Scholar, Ortigas earned her MA in literature and criticism at the University of Greenwich. She speaks three languages, and is the editor of I, Migrant, an online platform which showcases writing from the diaspora, advocating a universal humanity beneath people's differences.