Nicole Hughes is a writer and researcher living in New York City. She founded Plastic Sugar Press in 2004, an independent publishing house specializing in political non-fiction. Nicole eventually gave up a noble, yet impoverished career as an independent publisher to study Middle East development politics at NYU. She has traveled extensively throughout the region, and has written about various area issues including post-conflict reconstruction in Lebanon and the evolution of political culture in Dubai. When not tearing her hair out over her PhD applications, she enjoys reading, running, and going on culinary explorations in the outer boroughs.