Asquith has 12 years of experience as a local beat reporter, national correspondent and foreign correspondent for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times and The Economist. She spent three years in the Middle East covering the Iraq war, and won “Educator of the Year” award by Education News for her coverage of the effects of war on the lives of school system. She also is author of two non-fiction books: The Emergency Teacher: A Year Inside Philadelphia’s Toughest School (Skyhorse Press, 2007) and The Spinsters’ War: A Story of Women, Life and Death in Iraq (Random House, 2009).