by AnnSheybani | Nov 1, 2015 | Life, Writing
I was browsing LinkedIn this morning when I came across a Steve Chandler quote. (If you don’t know Steve, you really should.) It went something like this: Discipline has nothing to do with personality, it has to do with practice. In other words self-discipline... by AnnSheybani | Oct 27, 2015 | Life, Writing
Here’s what I learned TOTALLY by accident. Personal story sells. When I came out of Harvard, I began to compile some of the personal essays I’d produced in grad workshops. These essays eventually turned into a memoir about my years living in Iran with a staunch... by AnnSheybani | Oct 12, 2015 | identity, Reading
This is my very first blog post from November of 2009. Lord Almighty, time flies. Six years, nearly to the day I started this blog with the sole intent of building an audience for my memoir about Iran, creating a platform. I wrote about books that influenced me,... by AnnSheybani | Oct 5, 2015 | Life, Reading, sex
It was the 70’s. Playboy and Penthouse were ubiquitous on suburban coffee tables, at least in the households where I babysat. My parents, in keeping with the make-love-not-war attitude of the era, kept a stash of porn star tell-all’s, Penthouse Forum volumes,... by AnnSheybani | Sep 27, 2015 | identity, Life
Everybody fears that they are not enough. Everybody. My father used to say that intimacy breeds contempt. This was his favorite motto, something he repeated every day So, I grew up believing that if someone got the chance to know the real me, they would hate my...
