Her work has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, the New York Times, GQ, and Newsweek, where she was a senior writer and music critic from 2000 to 2009.
[4] Ali was born in Los Angeles California to an Iraqi father and an American mother of French Canadian ancestry.
She has written for Esquire, SPIN, The Village Voice, Adweek, Entertainment Weekly, Harper's Bazaar and Option.
[5] Since the Multi-National Force (sometimes called The Coalition) invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ali has published dozens of stories about her extended Iraqi family, the ensuing refugee crisis and President Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban.
[2] In 2022, she won first place, Criticism of TV, at the LA Press Club's Southern California Journalism Awards.