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Welcome to my very very very first EVER book giveaway!!!!! Thanks for stopping by!

Leave a comment in the "comment" section below for a chance to win an autographed copy of Persian Dreams.

Persian Dreams is a historical novel about love and revolution. The time-line of Persian Dreams covers three generations of family members. This generational span gives the reader a birds-eye view of the hardships women faced in Persia (AKA Iran) and how they have developed, changed and molded the lives of Persian women.

The aspect of seeing the world through the eyes of different generations was the most eye opening to me. I felt like I was able to step out of my cultural mindset and understand on a different level what life is like/was like, for the women of Persia. My heart ached for the hardships that the characters endured and I was reminded of the freedom and equality that women in America so often take for granted.

Interview with The Author of Persian Dreams, Maryam Tabibzabdeh

Thank you for answering these questions, Maryam. I'm excited to look into the thought and motivation behind Persian Dreams.

1) What prompted you to write Persian Dreams?
I want the world to know that we as a nation have suffered from the changes Iran has experienced in the last 100 years. I wanted to express the story from the inside, to counter the perceptions that the world holds about our country. I believe that we as a nation have suffered more than the world community can comprehend, and that this information is not finding its way to the public in the right ways. I would like for people to know where we come from, how we got here, that we have had both good and bad come about from the course of historic events. I want people to understand that we have a civilized past, but that we also have many things that need to be changed in the future.

2) What do you hope your readers will gain from this book?
I hope that they will be enchanted. The story is told in the style of folklore, and I created the characters and imagery to enhance the epic quality of the family's tale. We feel uplifted by the victories and crushed by the terrible circumstances and drama that the characters undergo. We share their pain and anxieties, we identify with their various situations.

In short, I believe that readers will be touched by the simple and honest language of this story of the trials and tribulations of a nation through the eyes of one family, under the shifting and unsteady political landscape of the time.


3) Would you like to speak on how the events in this book tie in with your own family history?
The story is loosely autobiographical. Many of the characters are based on people that I knew growing up. The shifting landscape also came easily, from stories my father and grandmother told me as a child. The personal events in my characters' lives however, are mostly fictional.


4) What is your writing routine like?
I don't really have a routine for writing. I write when I have an urge to write something, and can only write when I am feeling a deeply about something very important in my life. I write poetry, short stories, and in this case, a novel. Poetry and short stories are more one-dimensional and can be written quickly, not needing the research novels often require. Generally, I prefer writing short stories the most, because they allow my diverse ideas a chance to manifest in short form. I like it because it is quick. Sometimes, I see or feel something and that is enough to write it out in the form of short story. Then, once in a while, I take these ideas, and pull them together into a novel.


5) Do you have a new Work In Progress that you are working on now?
Can you tell us a little bit about it?

I have hundred ideas and yes, I am working on them. Two novels in particular:

The first is about a missionary medical doctor stationed in Iran in 1980's. While working in the a Hospital, he falls in love with a married woman. After many episodes she finally gets a divorce from her husband, thinking that they will be free to live together happily. Unfortunately, they are caught and as a result are sentenced to death.

The second is about a western woman in the west with traditional ideas and her reaction to her children's choices of homosexuality and interracial marriage. I have the idea and doing research on it.

You can visit Maryam's web-site at www.persiandreams.org/

Don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy! You have until Noon on Friday to enter. The winner will randomly be selected via the highly sophisticated process known as "drawing names out of a tupper ware bowl."

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