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AIAW News Archive - 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009 - New York City
Come hear AIAW members Porochista Khakpour and Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, along with dozens of amazing, award-winning Asian American writers at the Page Turner Festival, Nov 14 in Brooklyn, NY.
Schedule and ticket info: www.pageturnerfest.org
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sidney Poitier joins author Angella Nazarian for her book release at Beverly Hills Civic Center
Beverly Hills, CA – Oscar winning actor Sidney Poitier will be appearing with Life As a Visitor author Angella Nazarian at the Beverly Hills Civic Center on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 3pm. The theme of the event centers around the subject of Ms. Nazarian’s recently released book – a look at the universal journey we face in finding our sense of ‘home’ in our community and within ourselves.
Forced to flee to the United States after the violent Iranian Revolution of 1979 at age eleven, author Angella Nazarian’s Life as a Visitor chronicles her difficult and 
triumphant journey from Iran to Beverly Hills, CA. Incorporating both prose and poetry, Nazarian creates a mosaic of thoughts, emotions and locations that allows readers an intimate and inside look at what life is like for an immigrant caught between two cultures. Life As A Visitor inspires readers to reflect upon the influences which shape us – and the importance of “Realizing that home is not a place but a state of mind, and belonging is not merely a feeling, but also an action.”
Mr. Poitier, who will be introducing Ms. Nazarian, spent his childhood years in Cat Island, Bahamas, before moving to the United States at 15 to live with his older brother in Miami. Mr. Poitier was the first African American actor to win an Academy Award. He has been awarded the Screen Actors Guild’s highest honor, the Life Achievement Award, for outstanding career and humanitarian accomplishments and was recently given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
Books may be purchased at the event and Ms. Nazarian will be available for signing after the program.
Life As a Visitor is featured in Assouline Magazine
Will feature in Town & Country Magazine's December issue.
Event Details:
Date: Sunday, October 18, 2009
Time: 3pm
Where: Beverly Hills Civic Center Plaza, adjacent to the Beverly Hills Public Library, 444 N. Rexford Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Free parking is available in the municipal lot adjacent to the Library
Reservations: Please call 310-288-2220
Additional information: www.AngellaNazarian.com
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Writers mark 30 years of Iranian-American Literature(New York, NY) – Sept 7, 2009 -- The Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center at the City University of New York (CUNY) and The Association of Iranian American Writers (AIAW) will host a panel discussion Let Us Tell You Where We’ve Been: 30 Years of Iranian American Literature—Reflections and Prospects on Thursday, September 17, 2009 at the CUNY Graduate Center. The evening’s discussion will feature the work of a number of Iranian-American writers, editors, and translators whose work has made an important contribution to the literature of the Iranian diaspora.
While international attention focused this summer on the presidential elections and the prolonged protests by citizens in the streets of Iran’s major cities, writers in the U.S. have had much to say about events in Iran recently and over the past three decades. This panel discussion, which will take place from 6:30-8:30 pm at The Graduate Center, Segal Theater, 365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th St.), New York, highlights the ways that writers in the U.S. have responded to revolution, war, and displacement over the past thirty years. New York-based novelist Nahid Rachlin, poet Roger Sedarat (also a professor at Queens College (CUNY), and nonfiction writer, Manijeh Nasrabadi, will be joined by San Francisco-based poet and editor Persis Karim, and Boston-based translator and writer, Kamran Rastegar. Poet and visual artist, Aphrodite Desirée Navab will moderate the discussion about how literature in the US has been shaped by the history and politics of the Iranian revolution and immigration to North America.
“The Iranian Revolution not only launched the Iranian exile community in America, but also divided the modern Iranian experience into before and after. It was an event so significant and far-reaching that it necessitated a psychological, social and historical grappling which naturally lent itself to literary writing,” said Manijeh Nasrabadi, co-director of AIAW. “Virtually all Iranian American literature in some ways emanates from the fact of the revolution,” she added.
Iranian-American writers open a particular window onto events and changes in Iran as well as to the ways that Iranian Americans have been influenced and shaped by recent Iranian and American history. These writers are part of a growing body of ethnic American literature that speaks to the experiences of Middle Eastern Americans who see both through America’s eyes as well as through the eyes of loved ones in Iran.
MEMEAC is the only Middle East Center in the country that highlights both the culture and history of the ancient and modern Middle East but also the changing culture of the U.S. with an emphasis on its Middle East immigrant and diaspora communities. AIAW is an organization dedicated to promoting the work of fiction and nonfiction writers and poets, journalists and photojournalists and artists who work with words.
For more information, please contact:
Manijeh Nasrabadi (co-director AIAW),
manijeh_nasrabadi@yahoo.com
(917) 535-7704
Persis Karim (founder and co-director AIAW)
persisk@yahoo.com
510 847-2817
Anny Bakalian, MEMEAC, Graduate Center CUNY
www.web.gc.cuny
News about Javad Mohsenian
Short Story captures First Prize
Javad Mohsenian recently participated in a short story contest sponsored by Bucks County Writers Workshop.
Bucks county, (PA) is the home of many famous writers such as Pearl Buck and James Michener. Many writers live in Doylestown, the County seat. As a member of BC Writers Workshop, Javad recently participated in a 'Ghost' writing contest, with a short story about Jinn. His beautifully crafted Iranian story took first prize."
READ THE STORY
August 17. 2009
by David Mattin - The National - August 17. 2009
Exerpt: "Shahriar Mandanipour was 39 years old and a literary star in Iran when, in 1995, he was invited to address the Writers’ Association of Armenia. Accompanying him would be 22 of Iran’s most important novelists and poets, also invited by the Armenians in a spirit of literary brotherhood. The Iranian writers packed into a bus and set off through the Zagros mountains. In the early hours of the morning – when most were asleep – their driver jammed the accelerator pedal, directed the bus towards a deep ravine and jumped out of the door. The bus careened towards the edge of the ravine, then struck a boulder at the edge and came to a shuddering halt. The writers clambered out, were arrested by Iranian security forces, interrogated and released..."
READ MORE
AIAW members featured in Hyphen Magazine May 2009
The latest issue of the Asian American magazine Hyphen has a feature story by Manijeh Nasrabadi on 2nd Generation Iranian American Writers. Pick up a copy at an independent bookstore near you. Visit www.hyphenmagazine.com for a complete list of stores.
April 4-5, 2009
Northern California AIAW members attend the 'Iranian Alliances Across Borders' conference at UC-Berkeley
A group of Northern California AIAW members attended the Iranian Alliances Across Borders conference at UC-Berkeley April 4-5. Jasmin Darznik gave a stirring defense of Iranian women's memoir and a compelling explanation of AIAW on the Arts/Culture panel. We also had a colorful table with several of our members' books for sale and information about AIAW's web site, mission statement and upcoming writing contest. The table was a hub of discussion and networking throughout the weekend, attracting writers and others who wanted to support our efforts. We left with a long list of new people interested in our activities. Afterwards, several AIAW members met to discuss plans for an 2010 AIAW conference. Check this site for details in the weeks to come.
The Poetry of Iranian Women: A Contemporary Anthology
Edited by Sheema Kalbasi
"The Poetry of Iranian Women: A Contemporary Anthology captures the words, the world and much of the creative spirit that characterize Iranian women of the turn of the twenty-first century. The voice that comes through this book is daring rather than desperate, decisive rather than doleful, and fairly composed, given the constraints that govern the lives of the featured poets, as women and as artists. In bringing this chorus of creativity to life, Sheema Kalbasi has performed a service that will be remembered for long." -- Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
The anthology can be purchased here
News from Porochista Khakpour
I have an essay up on The Daily Beast, Tina Brown's newish news and cultural site. Check it out here.
It's about the Iranian Revolution (it's the 30th anniversary), an event that totally altered the course of my life. . . even though I was only one year old when it went down. The essay is about its aftermath and my family's early life in the Eighties in the Los Angeles diaspora. Let me know what you think. (I've never really laid out my entire early life like that, not to mention my entire family's!)
Last week I did an interview with Voice of America's "Roundtable" show (an hour-long program where the interview is followed with questions from callers from around the wrold) about the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, and Iranian and Iranian-American youth. Link to archive (Farsi)
January 17, 2009 Washington D.C.
Panel Discussion - 'Who We Are: Experiences of Four Iranian American Novelists'.
From left: Novelists Susanne Pari, Parissa Ebrahimzadeh,
Massud Alemi, Zoe Ghahremani and moderator Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak.
The International Society for Iranian Studies, along with Ibex Publishers and The Persian Program at Georgetown University hosted a panel discussion titled Who We Are: Experiences of Four Iranian American Novelists.
Moderated by Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Professor and Founding Director of the Roshan Cultural Heritage Center for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, the panel discussion featured four Iranian American novelists, Susanne Pari, Parissa Ebrahimzadeh, Massud Alemi, and Zohreh Ghahremani.
Susanne Pari discussed her novel, The Fortune Catcher, which explores bicultural identity and religious fundamentalism in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. This fictional story of first love and escape during post-revolutionary Iran spins a sensational tale of harrowing terror and passion. Her book has been translated into six different languages.
Parissa Ebrahimzadeh, a fiction and nonfiction writer born in Tehran and raised in California, is currently working on a novel entitled The Distance Between, a story about a family’s journey from Iran, their survival, and cultural exploration. Ms. Ebrahimzadeh completed her undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Comparative Literature with a Minor in Mathematics from the University of California, Irvine, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University.
Massud Alemi who lives in Washington D.C. published his first novel in January of 2008. Interruptions is about the many interruptions in life that inform who we are, the decisions we make, and the paths we take in our daily existence. The novel examines some of the misfortunes of the Iranian people and the country. The overriding theme is the ruptures at every level in the lives of characters, emotional as well as political. Alemi is a member of the Association of Iranian American Writers and founding member of DC Area Screenwriters group.
Zohreh Ghahremani, a lifelong writer and poet, practiced dentistry and taught at Northwestern University before becoming a full-time writer. Her first book, Shareek-e-gham was published in Persian, but she has since completed three literary novels in English. Her most recent novel, yet to be published, is titled Sky of Red Poppies and chronicles the lives of two friends of very different backgrounds in the time of the Revolution, one of an aristocratic family and another of a middle class home. One friend stays in Iran to endure the hardships of the war and revolution, while another travels to Europe and America to face very different complexities.
Saturday, November 8
Report on November 8 AIAW Reading
Iranian-American Writers: The Next Generation
On Saturday, November 8, AIAW held its first public literary event in New York City. The reading and book signing, titled Iranian-American Writers: The Next Generation, was co-sponsored by Arte East and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and held at the Workshop’s midtown venue.
The standing-room only crowd was treated to a diverse sampling of poetry and prose from authors in their 30s whose work is shaped as much -- or, in some cases, more -- by their experiences growing up in America, as by their connections to Iran.
Porochista Khakpour read excerpts from her new personal essay in the latest issue of Canteen on her life as a writer, as well as a selection from her novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects. Roger Sedarat drew laughs with an animated, poetic send-up of Iranian nationalism and militarism, and read from his new chap book, From Tehran to Texas, and from Dear Regime: Letters to the Islamic Republic.
Aphrodite Desiree Navab read from her new lyric prose piece Tales Left Untold and Manijeh Nasrabadi read from her memoir Carry the Sand Away from the Walls.
A lively Q&A followed concerning the joys and burdens of representing Iranian American identity in this political moment, the dilemma of those with multiple heritages who often feel forced to chose, and the relationship between stereotypes about Iran and the authors’ work.
The evening was dedicated to the memory of Kendal Kennedy, the Iranian-American artist and scholar who passed away earlier this year.
Plans are underway for a spring reading at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and for an AIAW gathering in NYC on November 22. For more information
Email Manijeh Nasrabadi
September 26, 27 & 28, 2008
Massud Alemi selected to participate in the 2008 Baltimore Book Festival Authors' Tent
Announcing his new novel: Interruptions
School teacher Farzin Rouhani's life is turned upside down after the Iranian police arrest him on suspicion of conspiring to overthrow the government. Although he is innocent, telling the truth is not an option. Facing his interrogator, Farzin has to decide--does he want to be jailed for subversion or is he willing to take the risk of revealing that he is a homosexual?
SAVE THE DATE!
13th Annual Baltimore Book Festival, 2008
FREE TO THE PUBLIC
The Baltimore Book Festival returns for three outstanding days of literary fun on September 26, 27 & 28, 2008.
Each day of the festival, 28 authors will present their books in a large 16’x100’ tent for book signings, meet-n-greets, book sales and more.
Massud Alemi will present his first novel, Interruptions on Saturday September 27, from 11 am to 7 pm. Plus Justine Simmons, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Karrine Steffans, Tina Louise, Earl “Bubba” Hiers, Cat Cora, Stephen Hunter, David Matthews, Stephen Dixon, Jacqueline Wilson, Roscoe Orman, Rafael Alvarez and many more!
Dynamic, personal interaction between readers and authors is the hallmark of our festival - please explore the stage schedules to learn about all the authors attending this year’s event. We look forward to seeing you at the Baltimore Book Festival 2008!
When: Friday, Sept 26, 5pm-9pm; Saturday, Sept 27, 11am- 7pm; Sunday, Sept 28, 11am-7pm
Where: The Authors’ Tent is located in the popular East Park at 17 East Mt. Vernon Place, near the Literary Salon and Peabody Library.
More info: www.myspace.com/baltimorebookfestival or
www.baltimorebookfestival.com
