Like most of you reading this, I feel the recession. I had spent the past few years building my career as a keynote speaker for educational conferences, something which I LOVED doing. The education sector has been hit very hard by the recession and many conferences have been canceled. Those conferences that remain are operating on small budgets. So that’s the bad news.

The good news is that I am working on a new book but I can’t talk about it! It’s not that it’s a big secret but there’s something strange about the creative process…talking about a project seems to make it go away. I know that sounds crazy but allow me a bit of craziness, okay?

I also have some very exciting speaking events coming up. I will be the convocation speaker at University of Vermont. I have never been there and can not wait to see the lovely state of Vermont. Did I mention I love maple syrup?

I am off to Houston for a talk on Sept. 11th. I hope all you Texans join me! Rumor has it George Bush will be there. (I just started that rumor.)

I will also be going to New Hampshire for their community reads.  I will be there in October and can not wait to see the foliage! My camera is ready.

There are a whole bunch of other engagements so check out the “events” tab on this site. And did I mention New York in March for the Women of the World Summit? The event is organized by Tina Brown and The Daily Beast and will include 400 women from around the world! Check it out if you are in town.

Thanks again for visiting this site. I assume you are either fans or relatives, or maybe just someone avoiding work. Be well and I wish you all good reading!

Well, ABC decided to kill the FUNNY IN FARSI sit-com. I am so sorry and SO disappointed. The pilot was hilarious and had many, many fans at ABC but the decision came down to just one person, the president of ABC and he passed on it.

What I am most sorry about is that this show had writers, actors and supporters of all backgrounds and it was truly laugh-out-loud funny. It would have been a groundbreaking series, believe me. For whatever reason, the president of ABC did not see its value.

The Facebook site for the series had 12,000 fans eagerly waiting for the show. The fans were from all over the world. As admin, I could see where the fans originate. It was a veritable United Nations, humor being the common ground.

I will recuperate from this…it feels like someone hit me over the head with a mallet, and then decide what to do next. ABC owns the script so I’ll have to think of something else. Given time, I trust I will.

Thank you again for all your support. It really does make a difference.

Thanks to all the fans who left comments after my last NPR piece (see the post below), I was asked to record the piece. Of course I had to leave out certain “bad” words in French to appease the FCC and our Puritan ancestors. (The deleted words were merde and ca ca, hardly shocking, I know.) Here is the link. You may have to cut and paste it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105169655

If you are at the office and want to avoid working, you can always go to www.npr.org, type my name in the search box and listen to all my pieces. I know, it’s not as fun as working on spreadsheets and crunching numbers but think of it as time spent supporting the arts.

Cheers,

Firoozeh

Here is the link to my latest NPR piece. (You have to cut and paste it.) There is no audio.  I couldn’t record it because I use a bad word in it…merde. We can thank the Puritans for that!

I hope you enjoy it! I had a lot of fun writing it, as you can probably guess.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105169655&sc=nl&cc=es-20100502

I just found out that the good folks in Concord, New Hampshire have selected my books for their Big Read. Go Concord, go! As some of you already know, I absolutely love these community reading programs and can not wait to see beautiful New Hampshire in the fall! I have always, always wanted to see that part of the US in the fall, and never have. I will post a picture afterwards so I can share the beauty with all of you.

In the meantime, I am in the middle of a great book, Queen of the Desert, which is about Gertrude Bell, a woman who should be much more famous than she is. If you like biographies about fascinating women, this book is for you!

First of all, I have to thank all the fans for the outpouring of goodwill regarding the pilot for FUNNY IN FARSI. I have received hundreds of emails on my Facebook account from readers ALL over the world, wishing me good luck. I feel like I have already won!

The president of ABC will view all pilots for new shows in May and will select two or three. If selected, the writers will have to write more episodes that will be shot. Then, the executives will view those and decide whether or not the series will actually be on television. As you can tell, it is a long road but we have already made it this far.

A sit-com based on FUNNY IN FARSI would be truly groundbreaking. It would change how Americans view Middle Eastern immigrants and would balance the constant negative press we receive. The only downside is that my parents would become famous. My father was already hugged by an employee at the DMV. Yes, you read that right, the DMV. It turns out this employee had read FUNNY IN FARSI and always wanted to meet my dad. She got her wish and my dad got a hug. How many people have been hugged at the DMV? Slapped, maybe. Hugged, never.

Let us think good thoughts until the month of May. If any of you happen to know the president of ABC, the man who will deciding the fate of the show, please be really nice to him and compliment him and tell him he looks fabulous. Treat him to dinner or maybe just take him to the DMV, where if he’s lucky, he might get a hug.

As some of you may have heard by now, ABC is shooting the pilot for FUNNY IN FARSI in Febuary 2010. Maz Jobrani has been cast as my father, the beautiful Marjan Neshat as my mother, and Hrach Titizian as my uncle. ABC is still deciding the rest of the cast.

I don’t want to give anything away, not to mention that changes can be made until the last minute, but suffice to say that I LOVE the script. The very talented husband and wife team of Nastaran Dibai and Jeffrey Hodes are the writers. Yes, Nastaran is Iranian and Jeffrey is almost Iranian.

It’s very exciting to be part of a project that utilizes the talents of so many Middle Easterners. Maz and Marjan are Iranian and Hrach is Armenian. I was hoping that at least part of the cast would be Iranian but what’s more important is for them to be good! And they are.

Stay tuned!

(click here for article)

Upper Saddle River residents Vicki Galow, left, and Elizabeth Koch, third from left, sharing some laughs with their fellow book club members.

I just interviewed Khaled Hosseini in Syracuse, New York. It was a lot of fun but more importantly, it gave Khaled a chance to talk about the Khaled Hosseini Foundation. According to Khaled, poverty is the biggest problem in Afghanistan and his foundation currently provides housing for the thousands of refugees displaced by the war. Please, take a moment to look at the website and maybe during this holiday season, we can honor our friends and family by alleviating the suffering of one family in Afghanistan. Thank you.

www.khaledhosseinifoundation.org

Here’s the video! It’s an hour so don’t watch it at work because I don’t want to be responsible for what might happen…

http://fora.tv/2009/09/10/Firoozeh_Dumas_Adventures_of_an_Iranian_American_Author