Events
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In
2001, Mehrdad Tooyserkani and I
were invited to hold a seminar about movies in the University
of Babol, in Mazanderan Province.
We chose “The Image of Women in Modern American Cinema”, and we concentrated on
the fact that women are not the fragile incompetent beings some propaganda
makes them out to be, and that gender discrimination in personal life and in
the work places exist everywhere in the world.
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The success of the seminar could be seen, as the
number of student remaining after the viewing for the talks started at less
than twenty on the first day, and ended with a full house on closing day.
It was a very enjoyable experience for me,
especially as I had finally found a “captive audience”.
What was really surprising, the Islamic Cultural
Organization of the University was impressed with our talks, and we received
hints that such programs would be welcome in other universities too.
Unfortunately, due to work pressure we haven’t had the chance yet to hold other
seminars.
The Lady standing in front of Mehrdad and me in the
group picture is my mother, Erika Varzi
(ne Zomic), who uses the excuse of chaperoning me to come along on most of my
work-related activities.
In
the fall of 2004, Mr. Ebrahimi Elvand shanghaied me into writing for the Iran
Children Books Festival in Kerman.
Much to my surprise, not only was my article "Problems of Classifying
Children and Juvenile Literature"
chosen as one of the 50 to be published articles, but I was asked to speak at
the conference. Considering it was written in three days to meet the deadline,
and was mostly a rant about my own problems in finding books at that age, and
the responsible people had neglected to tell me about it until I found out on
my own two hours before the speech was due… I had some rather kind reviews and
received several compliments. (My mother, of course, considered it to be the
best speech with the best delivery, but that’s just what she says…)
During
the festival, I was in the esteemed company of Donna Jo Napoli and Meghan
Nuttel Sayres from the USA, Jamila Gavin from the UK, and Dr. Sonia Nimr, the award winning and controversial
Children's Book author from Palestine.
All of these great ladies were very kind and encouraged me to pursue my dream
of writing a novel. I’m working on it, promise!