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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: I MISS YOU, I HATE THIS
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://sarasaediwriter.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME: SATA 334
http://www.penguin.com/author/sara-saedi/275989 * http://ladyclever.com/profiles/sara-saedi-on-sustaining-a-successful-writing-career/ * http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1270061/ * http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/275989/sara-saedi
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Tehran, Iran; immigrated to the United States, 1982; married; children: two sons.
EDUCATION:University of California, Berkeley, B.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and screenwriter. Former creative executive for ABC Daytime, American Broadcasting Company, including creative executive on General Hospital, 2005-10; staff writer for The Goodwin Games, Fox, beginning 2012; writer for CW’s iZombie.
AWARDS:Emmy Award, for ABC Daytime web series “What If… .”
WRITINGS
Write for television series, including The Goodwin Games, staff writer for episodes title “Welcome Home, Goodwins,” “Small Town,” “The Birds of Granby,” “Happy Hour,” and “The Box,” all 2013; and Zombie, writer for episodes, “The Hurt Stalker,” 2015; “Spanking the Zombie,” 2017, and “Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Brain,” 2018, also story editor for 22 episodes.
SIDELIGHTS
Born in Tehran, Iran during the middle of a war, Sara Saedi eventually immigrated with her family to the United States. She received her undergraduate degree in film and mass communication and began her career working for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a creative executive for ABC Daytime. She eventually left ABC to become a full-time writer.
Saedi’s debut young adult novel, Never Ever, tells the story of Wylie Dalton, who is celebrating her seventeenth birthday. Wylie and her brothers, Joshua and Micah, are all together on a rooftop in New York City for the birthday bash. Joshua is free for one more night before he goes off to juvenile detention. All of the siblings are also dealing with their parents’ upcoming divorce after years of constant fighting. A handsome young man named Phinn is also at the party and immediately catches Wylie’s eye. It turns out that Phinn is magical and can fly. Giving a herb to the three siblings enables them to fly as well. They end up on an island home for teenagers only. Calling Never Ever “a twisted tale of Peter Pan,” Voice of Youth Advocates contributor Dianne Colson went on to note: “But Saedi … creates an original, fantastical world for her lost children.
In the sequel to Never Ever, titled The Lost Kids, Saedi delves further into the magical world of Phinn. It turns out that Phinn has been kidnapping unhappy and mostly neglected young people from New York to take to his magic island called Minor. Phinn is the absolute ruler on the island, where the youngsters eat hallucinogens, with all the girls required also to take birth control. If anyone rebels, they are banished to the Forbidden Side. Although living under a tyrant, the kids come and stay because they are free from their parents and all adults. plus they can fly and stay young. There is a revolt by the kids and an invasion by an adult who once lived on the island and is now a doctor looking for the secret to eternal youth. A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that the novel “explore[s] feminism, love, and the heartache inherent in growing up.”
In her memoir Americanized: Rebel without a Green Card, Saedi focuses on growing up in 1990s California after she and her family emigrated from Iran. Undocumented immigrants, Saedi and her family fear deportation. Nevertheless, Saedi has a happy childhood. Saedi not only recounts numerous family stories, many of them humorous, she also informs readers about the history of Iran, its geopolitical place in the world, and the reasons her family fled her home country. “This irresistible and timely memoir is hard to put down,” wrote Sharon Rawlins in Booklist. Stephanie Wilkes, writing in Voice of Youth Advocates, noted: “One of the strongest points of this memoir is the attention to the United States’ immigration policies.”
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In I Miss You, I Hate This, Saedi profiles two very different friends in Los Angeles who combine their strengths and weaknesses to survive high school, the world, and a pandemic. Parisa Naficy is a wealthy Iranian American girl who is valedictorian and planning to go to Harvard, but she suffers from anxiety disorder. Gabriela Gonzales is a Mexican American with financial difficulties but brimming with self-confidence. The two girls become friends at the beginning of senior year and take on an “us versus the world” scheme to get through young adulthood. Gabriela has the added stress of being estranged from her extended family who disowned her lesbian parents. In their senior year, a worldwide pandemic called ademavirus results in quarantine, and the girls, feeling the hardship of isolation, communicate through text messages and emails. Gabriela talks about a crush, and Parisa mends her relationship with her older sister.
In an article online at School Library Journal, Saedi explained that she wanted to write about a certain aspect of the pandemic from a teenager’s point of view: “I thought it was important to write a book that would serve as a time capsule for what teenagers were going through [during Covid]. I had so much empathy for high school seniors that were missing out on milestones like prom and graduation, and I wanted to write a record of their experiences.” Saedi zeroed in on the mode of communication between Parisa and Gabriela during the pandemic. Saedi chose the personalized multimedia of texts and emails. She remarked in an interview with JoAnn Yao on the We Need Diverse Books website: “I included the text and emails as a way to keep Gabriela and Parisa connected to each other through the pandemic. …I’m sure teens were utilizing technology even more than they normally would. It also worked in my favor as a storytelling device, because some of the tensest moments between Gabriela and Parisa were the result of failed technology—like an email that gets sent to Parisa that was never meant to be sent.”
The book’s realistic teen voices coping with a fictional pandemic provide “an emotionally layered novel that earnestly demonstrates how life continues moving forward,” observed a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. Writing in Kirkus Reviews, a critic remarked: “The heavy subject matter is masterfully handled, juxtaposing raw episodes of sickness, loss, grief, and strained bonds with heartwarming conversations.”
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BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Saedi, Sara, Americanized: Rebel without a Green Card, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2018.
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 1, 2017, Sharon Rawlins, review of Americanized, p. 34.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2016, review of Never Ever; December 1, 2017, review of Americanized; March 1, 2018, review of The Lost Kids; August 15, 2022, review of I Miss You, I Hate This.
Publishers Weekly, November 20, 2017, review of Americanized, p. 95; August 15, 2022, review of I Miss You, I Hate This, p. 77.
School Library Journal, May, 2016, Jane Miller, review of Never Ever, p. 119; February, 2018. Monica Cabarcas, review of Americanized, p. 124.
Voice of Youth Advocates, June, 2016, Dianne Colson, review of Never Ever, p. 81; December, 2017, Stephanie Wilkes, review of Americanized , p 79; April, 2018, Laura Woodruff, review of The Lost Kids, p. 74.
ONLINE
Horn Book Online, https://www.hbook.com/ (April 22, 2018), “Spring 2018 Publishers’ Preview: Five Questions for Sara Saedi.”
Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/ (July 25, 2018), author filmography.
Los Angeles Review of Books, https://lareviewofbooks.org/ (February 16, 2018), Juliana Romano, “You Belong Here: A Conversation with Aditi Khorana and Sara Saedi.”
Sara Saedi website, http://sarasaediwriter.com (July 25, 2018).*
School Library Journal, https://teenlibrariantoolbox.com/ (October 7, 2022), Sara Saedi, “I Wrote a Book About the Pandemic. I’m Scared No One Will Want to Read It.”
We Need Diverse Books, https://diversebooks.org/ (September 27, 2022), JoAnn Yao, “Q&A with Sara Saedi, I Miss You, I Hate This.”
About Sara
Flashback:
Born in Tehran, Sara relocated with her family to the Bay Area after the Islamic revolution, and during the Iran-Iraq War. She was making up stories before she could read or write, and by eight-years-old, declared that she was going to be a screenwriter. She credits this career choice to her mom for taking her to see movies like Cocktail and Rain Man in the movie theaters, even though she was a mere second grader. It was a good year for her and for Tom Cruise. After a few left turns and an abandoned career path as a creative executive, Sara made the leap to paid writer.
Fast Forward to:
She's since written on The Goodwin Games (Fox), Grand Hotel (ABC), iZombie and Katy Keene (the CW). Most recently, she was a Co-EP on the upcoming Green Lantern for HBO Max. She's also written four books. Her novels, Never Ever and The Lost Kids were published by Viking. Her memoir Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card, was published by Knopf Books for Young Readers (and it was developed for TV with Hello Sunshine & ABC Studios, twice).
CUT TO Present Day:
Sara’s next book, I Miss You, I Hate This, about two best friends separated by a pandemic, will be published by Little Brown/Poppy on October 11, 2022.
Sara’s personal life often inspires her work. She lives in LA with her husband, their two boys, and their sweet rescue pug.
Sara Saedi
Sara Saedi was born in Tehran, Iran smack-dab in the middle of a war and an Islamic Revolution. She entered the world to the sounds of bombs exploding near the hospital and though her memory of the day is a bit fuzzy, the life and death stakes surrounding her birth prepared Sara for the writing life. (Obviously.) Once a creative executive for ABC Daytime, Sara now writes novels for teens and TV for everyone. Credits include the ABC Daytime web series What If…(she won an Emmy), the FOX sitcom The Goodwin Games, and most importantly, discovering that Scott Foley is even hotter in person.
These days, Sara writes for the CW’s iZombie and is excited about the release of her debut novel, Never Ever. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her pug, Mabel, who pretty much outshines everyone.
Genres: Young Adult Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
New Books
October 2022
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I Miss You, I Hate This
Series
Never Ever
1. Never Ever (2016)
2. The Lost Kids (2018)
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Novels
I Miss You, I Hate This (2022)
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Non fiction
Americanized (2018)
Sara Saedi was born in Tehran, Iran smack-dab in the middle of a war and an Islamic Revolution. As the story goes, she entered the world to the sounds of bombs exploding near the hospital. Though her memory of the day is a little fuzzy, the life and death stakes surrounding her birth helped prepare her for a writing career. Sara received a B.A. in Film and Mass Communications from the University of California, Berkeley and began her career as a creative executive for ABC Daytime. In 2010, she left the company to pursue her dream of being a writer. She’s since penned three TV movies for ABC Family, won a Daytime Emmy for What If…, a web series she wrote for ABC, and worked as a staff writer on the FOX sitcom The Goodwin Games. Most recently, she wrote a pilot for The Disney Channel and sold her debut YA novel Never Ever to Viking Children’s Books for publication in summer 2016. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and her pug, Mabel.
Author, Screenwriter Sara Saedi To Co-Executive Produce HBO’s “Green Lantern”
July 23, 2021
From Black Adam to The Eternals and beyond, news of new superhero films is not hard to come by. Next up: Green Lantern. Iranian-American screenwriter and creative executive Sara Saedi is set to work on HBO Max’s upcoming Green Lantern series. This latest will follow her most recent work for ABC’s Grand Hotel and The CW’s Katy Keene and iZombie.
A decade after the 2011 Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, which disappointed Warner Bros. at the box office and was poorly received by audiences and critics alike, HBO Max has decided to give the superhero another chance. Producer Greg Berlanti will team up with executive producers Seth Grahame-Smith, Marc Guggenheim, Geoff Johns, Sarah Schechter, David Madden and David Katzenberg. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Hunter and Sara Saedi have joined up as co-executive producers.
From screenwriting and producing to books, Sara Saedi crafts stories
Saedi earned her B.A. in film and mass communications from the University of California, Berkeley. She then began her career in television and visual productions as a creative executive for ABC Daytime. In 2010, she shifted her focus to screenwriting to pursue her dream of being a writer. During this time, she earned an Emmy award for new approaches for her ten-part ABC web series, “What If…”.
Saedi then worked on the FOX sitcom The Goodwin Games and prepared her first young adult novel, Never Ever. This sold to Viking Children’s Books for publication in summer 2016. She then followed up this first YA novel with another one about teenagers, The Lost Kids.
Following these first two fictional book projects, Saedi shared her own story and experience with the world through a memoir. In 2018’s Americanized: Rebel without a Green Card, she drew on her memories and wrote about her personal experience of being an undocumented Iranian teenager growing up in the USA. Americanized describes Sara’s 18-year-long path to citizenship, and captures the overpowering anxiety of being an undocumented immigrant from the Middle East.
Sara Saedi captures the anxiety-inducing effects of being undocumented in Americanized
Saedi was born in 1980 during the Iran hostage crisis. As such, she came into the world in the midst of war and revolutionary fervor in Iran. This chaotic environment, and the rapid change produced by the latter soon led her family to seek a life elsewhere. The Saedi family had relatives in the US and Saedi’s father had studied at Louisiana State University. So, they decided to flee to the US.
In 1982, when Sara was only 2 and her sister 5 years old and while the borders were closed in Iran, Sara’s father managed to bribe somebody in the government to get papers for his wife and daughters, so they could go to California. He stayed behind for a while, though, not to give the impression that the family was leaving permanently. Her father joined them in the Bay Area after three months. However, Sara writes in Americanized that she did not recognize him, and was afraid of him at first.
When their tourist visas expired, the family stayed and applied for political asylum. However, their application somehow got lost in the shuffle. So they had to look for alternate ways to gain a legal foothold in the US.
Sara herself only learned about her family’s legal status at the age of 13. She recalls her sister’s frustration while filling job applications, when they all asked for her Social Security Number.
As she shows in Americanized, those years were marked by a looming fear of deportation. It was “something that was always in the back of my mind,” she says, pointing out how being secretive about their situation was contributing to her teenage angst. After 18 years, though, Saedi finally got her Green Card, through her uncle’s sponsorship, in 2000, and became a citizen 6 years later.
Green Lantern in production and set to debut secretly gay FBI agent Alan Scott
While a release date for the upcoming HBO series has not been announced, production for Green Lantern is underway. Lee Toland Krieger will be directing the first few episodes of the show, and Finn Wittrock has been cast in a lead role.
The story will span different decades and galaxies, starting in 1941 with the very first Green Lantern, secretly gay FBI agent Alan Scott. The story will later depict the year 1984, with alpha male Guy Gardner and half-alien Bree Jarta joined by other Green Lanterns.
I Wrote a Book About the Pandemic. I’m Scared No One Will Want to Read It, a guest post by Sara Saedi
October 7, 2022 by Amanda MacGregor Leave a Comment
Early on into the pandemic, I started to experience a bit of an identity crisis. I’m sure a lot of women did. I was sheltering at home, in Los Angeles, with my husband and my toddler boys (aged 3 and 1 at the time), my job as a TV writer on The CW show, Katy Keene, was put on hold indefinitely (the series would later get cancelled, in great part due to Covid), and I was living in a constant state of anxiety that I was, well, going to get sick and die. I equate the emotions to the days, weeks, and months following 9/11.
“What is even the point?” A voice in my head kept asking.
It didn’t help that all my writer friends (sans kids) were thrilled that quarantine allowed them uninterrupted time to work on their books and screenplays and TV pilots. The only thing I had time to work on was banana bread. My situation wasn’t unique. It wasn’t even dire compared to so many, but it became clear to me that in order to be a somewhat sane mother to my children, I needed a creative outlet. If I was going to survive lockdown, I couldn’t let go of my identity as a writer. Even if that meant giving my kids unlimited screen time.
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A month later, I’d written the book proposal for my latest novel, I Miss You, I Hate This. The story follows two teenaged girls and best friends, dealing with a fictional global pandemic during their senior year of high school. One that impacts their age group disproportionately. Yes, while trying to escape our own pandemic, I came up with the brilliant idea to write about one. At the time, I thought it was important to write a book that would serve as a time capsule for what teenagers were going through. I had so much empathy for high school seniors that were missing out on milestones like prom and graduation, and I wanted to write a record of their experiences. I had no idea that two and a half years later, Covid would still be a topic of conversation. And that we’d all be exhausted from living it, discussing it, reflecting on it.
Over time, when people asked me what my book was about, I would often respond with a self-deprecating: “Unfortunately, it’s about a pandemic” or “No one’s going to want to read it, because it’s about a pandemic.” I made those comments, because I was bracing myself for premature disappointment. But then, I had an aha moment from the woman who made aha moments famous: Oprah Winfrey. I read an interview she did with the LA Times in April 2022, and here’s what she had to say about the pandemic:
“I don’t recognize a country where you’ve lost nearly a million people and there hasn’t been some form of remembering that is significant… Who are we that there is no acknowledgment, profoundly, in our society that we have lost our loved ones? And at times, we’re not even able to bury our dead. Who are we that we don’t recognize the significance of that acknowledgment?”
Thanks to Ms. Winfrey, I had a perspective shift. I realized that I shouldn’t shrug off my work, because it’s about a pandemic. Maybe instead, what I did was write a book that acknowledged the pandemic. My hope is that I Miss You, I Hate This helps young people process all the loss they’ve endured the last few years. The book tackles the ups and downs of growing up, and more specifically, the mental health struggles teenagers face today— in an era where suicides rates are the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds. It’s about two young girls who are trying to find themselves, sometimes at the expense of their friendship. It’s about first love, family struggles, and paralyzing fears and insecurities. It explores the notion that our fear of death is in direct proportion to our will to live.
I am proud of the book. It saved me during a time when I was unraveling. And I’m done bracing myself for premature disappointment. Instead, I just hope people read it and find some catharsis by the end. We could all use a communal exhale these days. If I can help provide one, then I did my job right.
Meet the author
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Sara Saedi is the author of the memoir Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card and the Never Ever series. She is also a television writer, most recently working on the upcoming Green Lantern series for HBO Max. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.
Book Page
Website
Twitter: @saaaranotsarah
IG: saaaranotsarah
About I Miss You, I Hate This
Five Feet Apart meets Kate in Waiting in this timely story of two best friends navigating the complexities of friendship while their world is turned upside down by a global pandemic, from the author of Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card.
The lives of high school seniors Parisa Naficy and Gabriela Gonzales couldn’t be more different. Parisa, an earnest and privileged Iranian American, struggles to live up to her own impossible standards. Gabriela, a cynical Mexican American, has all the confidence Parisa lacks but none of the financial stability. She can’t help but envy Parisa’s posh lifestyle whenever she hears her two moms argue about money. Despite their differences, as soon as they met on the first day of freshman year, they had an “us versus the world” mentality. Whatever the future had in store for them—the pressure to get good grades, the litany of family dramas, and the heartbreak of unrequited love—they faced it together. Until a global pandemic forces everyone into lockdown. Suddenly senior year doesn’t look anything like they hoped it would. And as the whole world is tested during this time of crisis, their friendship will be, too.
Q&A With Sara Saedi, I Miss You, I Hate This
September 27, 2022 by JoAnn Yao
i miss you i hate this blog header
By Olivia Mules
Today we’re pleased to welcome Sara Saedi to the WNDB blog to discuss YA novel I Miss You, I Hate This, out October 11, 2022!
The lives of high school seniors Parisa Naficy and Gabriela Gonzales couldn’t be more different. Parisa, an earnest and privileged Iranian American, struggles to live up to her own impossible standards. Gabriela, a cynical Mexican American, has all the confidence Parisa lacks but none of the financial stability. She can’t help but envy Parisa’s posh lifestyle whenever she hears her two moms argue about money. Despite their differences, as soon as they met on the first day of freshman year, they had an “us versus the world” mentality. Whatever the future had in store for them—the pressure to get good grades, the litany of family dramas, and the heartbreak of unrequited love—they faced it together. Until a global pandemic forces everyone into lockdown. Suddenly senior year doesn’t look anything like they hoped it would. And as the whole world is tested during this time of crisis, their friendship will be, too.
With equal parts humor and heart, Parisa’s and Gabriela’s stories unfold in a mix of prose, text messages, and emails as they discover new dreams, face insecurities, and confront their greatest fears.
I Miss You I Hate This cover art
Tell me a little about your new book, I Miss You, I Hate This. What can readers expect? What do you hope readers take away from the book?
First and foremost, the book is a love story between two best friends. Most of the YA books I’ve read center on romantic love and I wanted to tell an epic friendship story. I know from my time in high school, my most meaningful (and tumultuous) relationships were with my girlfriends and I wanted to write a book that honored those dynamics. The story is also set during a fictional pandemic, because I really wanted to explore what lockdown was like for teenagers. Once it became clear in 2020 that proms and graduation ceremonies were going to be cancelled, I felt so much empathy for high school seniors. My last year of high school was full of so many milestones and so many formative memories, and not enough of us were talking about the grief that goes along with having life experiences abruptly taken away. I hope teenagers who read the book find it cathartic and relatable. And that adults who read it will be able to empathize with what the younger generation went through during the pandemic. Most of all, I hope readers walk away from it feeling like this wasn’t just a book about a pandemic, but a story about two young women trying to find their way in the world.
Who was your favorite character to create and write lines for? What is your favorite line that they say or action that they do?
I loved writing for Parisa and Gabriela equally. With Gabriela, there was a level of wish fulfillment, because she’s so confident and self-assured and truly doesn’t care what other people think—and that’s not me at all. Through Parisa, I got to explore my own experiences with anxiety disorder and that was really therapeutic. I don’t necessarily have a favorite line or action, but my favorite scene with Gabriela is one she shares with her friend Wes (who later becomes her love interest). It’s the moment he opens up to her about his mom’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent death. He confesses his love to Gabs, and she’s too afraid to reciprocate. And with Parisa, I loved writing her college essay because I thought it was an honest window into what it’s like to grapple with anxiety.
Where did the inspiration initially come from for this book?
I started writing the book two weeks into the pandemic. My day job as a TV writer was put on hold and I was in lockdown with my husband and our two boys, who were both toddlers at the time. I was desperate to find a creative outlet and the idea for two best friends navigating isolation during a pandemic felt like a project that could help me sort through my own feelings about what we were experiencing.
When you write, what is your favorite part of the writing process? Why?
I love rewriting. I love the challenge of taking what’s on the page and making it better. It feels like a little competition between my present-self and my past-self. Or maybe less of a competition and more of an assist. I find that rewriting is when I get into more of a flow state, because I’m not as [frozen] by the blank page.
Did you encounter any challenges or unexpected surprises when writing the book?
Initially, I only wanted the book to be text messages and emails with no first-person prose. To be completely honest, I think a format where the characters were corresponding with each other felt a lot easier to write. I didn’t have to worry as much about making the writing sound “good” as much as I had to worry about making it sound authentic. I wrote the book on proposal and once my agent and I started talking to editors, it was clear that they wanted less texts and emails and more prose. What I ended up loving about including prose and text messages was that we got to see the versions of themselves that Parisa and Gabriela presented to each other. What they would edit and gloss over and downplay. Even though they were best friends, it was really interesting for me to explore the parts of themselves that they kept hidden from each other. Now I can’t imagine the book any other way.
The book contains different multimedia (text messages and emails). Why did you include these as distinct things/use the format that you chose rather than just incorporating them into the text?
I included the text and emails as a way to keep Gabriela and Parisa connected to each other through the pandemic. I’m in my early 40s and I was constantly texting with friends during the height of lockdown, so I’m sure teens were utilizing technology even more than they normally would. It also worked in my favor as a storytelling device, because some of the tensest moments between Gabriela and Parisa were the result of failed technology—like an email that gets sent to Parisa that was never meant to be sent.
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Did you have to do any research for this book? If so, what was the most interesting thing you found out about?
I’m Iranian-American, so it was very important to me that when writing Gabriela and her family (who are Mexican-American) their story rang as true as possible. It probably helped that Gabriela was a young woman who felt disconnected from her roots, because of the trauma her mothers experienced. She was trying to figure out what it meant to be Mexican-American and was very much in a discovery phase. I know it’s tricky and complicated territory to write characters with backgrounds that are different than your own, but I also think that’s why many of the writers I’ve met are highly empathetic people. Part of the exercise is putting yourself in your protagonist’s shoes and not just writing characters whose life experience mirrors your own. (Even though Parisa is Iranian, there were a lot of things that she and I didn’t have in common either.) A lot of the research I did was on Mexico City, because I loved the idea of Gabriela dreaming of moving there. We typically see young heroines have a fascination with places like New York or Paris, and I loved the idea that her desires may be atypical of what we’re used to. My dear friend Tanya Araiza Ramirez, who’s Mexican-American, also read a draft of the book and gave me invaluable feedback on what I got wrong and what I was getting right.
Late in the stages of writing the book, I read The Class of Covid-19 by the students at Cliffside Park High School. Their stories were so beautiful and heartbreaking, but also really encouraging, because I felt like I was accurately capturing the angst teens were experiencing.
Lastly, I loved The Daily episodes entitled Odessa, which took you through how a high school in Texas was dealing with re-opening. In fact, those episodes inspired me to put Parisa in the school marching band. I hadn’t really thought about the loss of identity that comes when after-school activities are taken away, and I think that detail really helped deepen her character.
We know that representation in books/media matters. What advice would you give to other authors who want to write about characters with diverse lives and identities?
I think the first question you should ask yourself is “am I the person to write this story?” I don’t subscribe to the idea that writers should only create characters whose lives are identical to the ones they’ve lived, but I do think that in order to be successful at your job, you need to have a connection and some source of identification with your characters. I wouldn’t attempt to say, write a book about the Black Lives Matter movement, because I don’t have the appropriate lens or life experience to tell that story. And ultimately, that would show in the final product. If you have an incredible idea, but you know you’re not the writer for it—be generous and share the idea with someone you think would knock it out of the park.
Second, if you are writing diverse characters, whose life experience you don’t share—then find a place where you do connect with that character. For example, Gabriela and I come from different ethnic backgrounds, but my socioeconomic background growing up was closer to hers than Parisa’s.
It’s also really important to have the humility to admit your blind spots and to ask questions. I worry sometimes that we’re all so anxious that we’ll say the wrong thing, that we’re now refraining from asking questions—out of fear of showing our ignorance. Then we’re stuck in a vicious cycle where none of us are learning anything.
If you do ask a friend to read a draft of your book to give you insights on a diverse character, then I really believe in compensating them for their time. You’re not asking for a favor, you’re asking for a service and you should pay for that service—whether or not your publisher is able to provide the budget.
If you could have your dream panel promoting I Miss You, I Hate This, what would it be about? What other authors and voices would you like to have on it alongside you?
My dream panel would be a conversation with teenagers about mental health struggles before, during, and after the pandemic. I didn’t realize I suffered from anxiety disorder until I heard the term in a sociology class in college. I always worried as a teen that my anxiety was actually some psychic ability that was forecasting impending doom. I’d love to moderate the panel and just be an active listener. I got to participate in a book club with high school students during the pandemic who’d read my memoir Americanized, and I ended up using the opportunity as an informal focus group about the pandemic. I find that when I get to speak at high schools, I’d really prefer not to talk about myself and learn about the young people I’m meeting and writing about.
Do you have any recommendations for published or forthcoming books or voices we should be reading?
I have met some wonderful writers since I started writing young adult novels, but I have to take this opportunity to highlight the work of Abdi Nazemian. His YA books, The Authentics, Like a Love Story, and The Chandler Legacies are all so wonderful and beautiful and honest. Not to mention, he’s the most generous writer I’ve had the privilege of getting to know. He’s a cheerleader for so many people’s work—Iranian-American writers and beyond. I always joke that Abdi knows everyone, but that’s really a testament to what a great person he is. But even if he was a total jerk, I’d still recommend his beautiful books.
What question do you wish you were asked more often (and the answer)?
Since I’m also a TV writer, I love fantasizing about which actors I’d cast in the screen adaptation. I’m a closet casting director! So, if I Miss You, I Hate This were being made into a movie, I’d cast Jenna Ortega to play Gabriela and Ariana Molkara for Parisa. Finn Wolfhard would make a great Wes. And Darren Barnet as Gideon, but he has to grow a beard. And an unknown to play Andrew, because I love the idea of giving a young Japanese actor his big break. We don’t have enough household names when it comes to teen actors who are of East Asian descent and that must mean we’re not writing enough characters who share their background.
Can you share anything about any projects you are currently working on?
I’m currently working on adapting my memoir, Americanized, into a feature length screenplay. I had a couple of opportunities to adapt it as a television series that didn’t pan out, so now I’m approaching it as the coming of age movie I wish existed when I was a teenager. I love Lady Bird and Juno, but those girls would have had it a lot harder if they also had to deal with unibrows and upper lip hair.
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sara saedi author headshot photoSara Saedi was born in Tehran, Iran and raised in the Bay Area. She’s the author of the memoir Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card and the Never Ever series. She is also a television writer, and has written for multiple shows including iZombie, Katy Keene, and Green Lantern. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, their two sons, and pug. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @saaaranotsarah or visit her website sarasaediwriter.com
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Olivia MulesOlivia Mules is currently pursuing her master’s degree in library and information science. Olivia’s goal is to work in academic librarianship and reference services with a focus on information literacy. Before starting her degree program, she was a special education teacher and taught math and science. Her favorite literary heroines are Elizabeth Bennet, Gemma Doyle, and Arya Dröttning. When Olivia is not doing schoolwork, she enjoys cooking, music, hikes with her wife and daughter, and drinking an inordinate amount of iced coffee.
SARA SAEDI: ON PARENTING, STORYTELLING AND IMMIGRATION
Published January 11, 2022
By Elena Epstein
Sara Saedi and her family.
Sara Saedi was born in Tehran, Iran during the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. Her family immigrated to the U.S., where Saedi grew up to become a storyteller. She has worked as a creative executive for ABC Daytime, penned movie and television scripts, won an Emmy and written books.
We recently spoke with her about her career, parenting and her latest book, “Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card,” which chronicles her story of growing up in America as an undocumented immigrant from the Middle East. The book is in development as a television series from Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company and ABC Studios.
What made you want to write this book?
Mainly, I wanted to address misconceptions that I’d experienced my whole life about what it means to grow up undocumented. At the time that I sold the book, immigration was (and continues to be) such a hot-button issue and one that’s become increasingly politicized. I wanted readers to get an up-close-and-personal look at what it’s like to live in this country and not have a green card and, more importantly, I wanted readers to know that’s it’s truly an uphill battle to become a U.S. citizen. My parents did everything in their power to do things “the right way,” and oftentimes the system failed them. Another misconception that I wanted to address were stereotypes about being Iranian. I grew up in a very warm and loving home, and my experiences were never reflected to me in popular culture. I was tired of seeing Iranians depicted as villains and terrorists.
Our world has changed in so many ways in the last two years. What do you hope readers will take away from your book now? How has your perspective changed since writing this book?
I hope readers whose experiences are similar to mine will feel comforted by my story, and I hope readers whose experiences are nothing like mine will feel deep [sympathy] for the immigrant journey. For the most part, I’ve been genuinely touched by the response to the book and very proud of the fact that it’s being taught in high schools all over the country and beyond. Last year, I got to Zoom with a high school class in Senegal who had read it! What that has taught me is that so many of our experiences, especially as teenagers, are universal, and that it’s very meaningful for young readers who are in the thick of all the angst and hardships of being in high school to hear an adult say, “Everything that makes you feel bad about yourself now will be what makes you flourish in the future.”
‘Americanized’ is funny and real and touching at the same time. Has humor always been the way you work through big feelings and life’s challenges?
Yes, definitely. In so many ways, our immigration story was a comedy of errors, and I think hindsight and a happy ending was what allowed me to see the humor years later. I don’t know how we can get through the ups and downs of life if we can’t have a sense of humor. I recently heard Esther Perel talk about working with Chilean torture survivors to adapt their stories to the stage. She said that when they came and watched the performances inspired by their stories, they said: “Where’s the humor? We had grit, we had resilience, but we also had humor.” That truly says it all.
Sara Saedi’s book, “Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card,” is intimate, real and funny. PHOTOS COURTESY SARA SAEDI
You have two sons and you are raising them in a multicultural household in L.A. How do you talk about culture, differences, your background?
Sometimes I feel myself fumbling my way through these conversations, but I think books and storytelling are the best way to connect to our kids about cultural differences. I try to share my personal experiences as much as I can. I told my oldest, Ellis, about how my family escaped Iran, and when he learned that I couldn’t bring any of my toys with me to America, he said: “Oh, Mommy, that’s so sad.” Our favorite books about the Iranian culture are “Saffron Ice Cream” by Rashin Kheiriyeh and “Seven Special Somethings: A Nouruz Story” by Adib Khorram. I also expose them as much as I can to Persian food — tahchin is the one thing I make that they’ll both eat — and Persian music.
How has becoming a parent changed you?
How has it not? It changes everything. It’s made me more joyous, more anxious, more tired, more fulfilled, more loving. It’s made me confront the worst sides of myself and discover the best sides. And it’s forced me to get better at asking for help and taking time for myself. I am constantly surprised by my kids. The cliché that they teach you more than you teach them is so true.
What are your days like right now?
I feel very fortunate to do what I do for a living. The best part of my career is that there’s flexibility and stretches of time off. The worst part is the unpredictability. As much as I miss being in an in-person writers’ room, the way a writing staff operates lends itself to video conference as well. So, these days, I’m mostly working from home via Zoom. Right now, I’m putting the finishing touches on my new young adult novel, “I Miss You, I Hate This,” which will be published by Little Brown [in October] and wrapping up on the first season of “Green Lantern” [for HBO Max]. The toughest part of the pandemic was not getting much uninterrupted time to work. Now that my kids are in school full time, I’m able to focus in a different way.
When not working, what do you enjoy doing in and around L.A.?
We love living in Silver Lake. We’re very lucky to be a close drive to Griffith Park, so that we can take our kids to Travel Town and Shane’s Inspiration on the weekends. We also enjoy walks around the Silver Lake reservoir and our neighborhood. My kids are currently obsessed with the secret stairs in Silver Lake, so we often walk to the hidden staircases we have nearby. My husband and I just reinstated a weekly date night — probably for the first time since we had kids — and it’s been really fun to go out to dinner and have uninterrupted time together. Some of our recent favorites are Yakiniku Osen, Gwen, Found Oyster, Cara Cara, Kali and Horses.
Saedi, Sara I MISS YOU, I HATE THIS Poppy/Little, Brown (Teen None) $17.99 10, 11 ISBN: 978-0-316-62982-9
Two best friends navigate life and love as the world teeters on the brink of disaster.
Parisa Naficy--a well-off, Harvard-bound, Iranian American valedictorian--has a privileged life, but she's consumed by extreme anxiety that she unsuccessfully attempts to hide. Beautiful, cool Mexican American Gabriela Gonzales leads a financially precarious existence with her lesbian moms and is haunted by their pasts; both women are estranged from their families due to their sexuality. The girls balance parental and cultural expectations with their own dreams. Their unlikely friendship withstood years of high school drama, but when the fictional ademavirus becomes a global pandemic disproportionately affecting young people, life as they know it is put on indefinite hold. The isolation brings out the best and worst in people, forcing both girls to reexamine themselves, their relationships, and what they value most as they work toward a new normal. Saedi's sensitive, witty writing style, both personable and deeply personal, makes this work more than yet another Covid fictionalization. The narration includes text message and email threads, reflecting the breakdowns of time and communication experienced in lockdown. The heavy subject matter is masterfully handled, juxtaposing raw episodes of sickness, loss, grief, and strained bonds with heartwarming conversations and budding relationships that shine a welcome light of hope into the darkness of uncertainty.
Memorable and beautifully vulnerable. (Fiction. 14-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Saedi, Sara: I MISS YOU, I HATE THIS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A713722541/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d7dd479b. Accessed 19 Dec. 2022.
Sara Saedi. Poppy, $17.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-316-62982-9
A fictional pandemic places two Los Angeles high school seniors' lives on hold in this timely novel by Saedi (Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card). Iranian American Harvard hopeful Parisa and best friend Gabriela, a Mexican American artist, have always made as much time for each other as they could between extracurriculars and after-school jobs. But when a global virus forces them into quarantine, they find themselves spending their final year of high school stuck in their homes, unable to see each other before imminent adulthood separates them. As the girls adjust to their new normal, Parisa's anxiety disorder worsens and Gabriela--who has always wondered about the extended family who cut themselves off from her mothers before her birth--feels more isolated than ever. Despite these stressors, the distance makes space for the teens' tertiary relationships to flourish, including Gabriela's long-simmering crush and Parisa's slowly thawing dynamic with her older sisrer. Alternating perspectives interspersed with text messages and email threads, all rendered in realistic teen voices, chronicle their lives from the start of senior year to graduation, resulting in an emotionally layered novel that earnestly demonstrates how life continues moving forward. Ages 14-up. Agent: Jessica Regel. Helm Literary. (Oct.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 PWxyz, LLC
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"I Miss You, I Hate This." Publishers Weekly, vol. 269, no. 34, 15 Aug. 2022, p. 77. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A715674551/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f4938ed6. Accessed 19 Dec. 2022.
Saedi, Sara. The Lost Kids: Never Ever, Book 2. Viking/Penguin Random House, April 2018. 240p. $17.99. 978-0-451-475770.
Eternal teenager Phinn is a bad boy. By persuasively kidnapping neglected youngsters from New York State, he has collected a band of teens on Minor, his magic island, over whom he holds absolute power. Their days are spent ingesting hallucinogenic flowers and following orders from Phinn. Birth control is mandatory for girls. Rebellious inhabitants are imprisoned on the Forbidden Side until Phinn decides their fates. Why do neglected and abused teens agree to come? It is the ability to live without adults, to fly, and to stay forever young. In this sequel to Never Ever (Penguin Random House, 2016/VOYA June 2016), Phinn's teens have staged a revolt. Wylie Dalton, formerly Phinn's girlfriend, has learned of his evil ways, joined with others, and fled by boat, vowing to return. Meanwhile, Phinn has been found and taken captive by remaining teens; he is in danger when, suddenly, Minor Island is invaded by adults. Phinn learns that these adults are led by Olivia, a middle-aged doctor who left Minor Island years ago and now seeks to discover the magic formula for eternal youth by studying the teens. Whisked away to an artificial island in a secret research facility, the teens resume their ways under scrutiny while plotting escape.
This Peter Pan facsimile is disappointing. Numerous characters are introduced without background, and important history is missing or revealed so late that readers may be confused for several chapters. Various incidents, meant to be amusing, are not: for example, Wylie's father, as a teen, flying nude, drunk and urinating on people below. Main characters are neither consistent nor convincing. The Lost Kids should not be read without reading the first, and more well received, Never Ever to provide a framework.--Laura Woodruff
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
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Woodruff, Laura. "Saedi, Sara. The Lost Kids: Never Ever, Book 2." Voice of Youth Advocates, vol. 41, no. 1, Apr. 2018, p. 74. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A536746209/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=06f07baa. Accessed 19 Dec. 2022.
Saedi, Sara THE LOST KIDS Viking (Young Adult Fiction) $17.99 4, 10 ISBN: 978-0-451-47577-0
Love, betrayal, and teenage angst return to Neverland in this brooding sequel to Never Ever (2016).
The story picks up with Wylie Dalton, the New York heroine from the first volume, separated from her brothers and adrift on a boat with several fellow lost kids. She is determined to revenge herself on Phinn, the Peter Pan stand-in who callously toyed with her emotions. The novel takes the darkness inherent in the original Barrie play and expands upon it--and the tale loses much of its magic as a result. Now that the children are teenagers, the coldheartedness of the original tale seems magnified. Saedi (Americanized, 2018, etc.) uses this fairy-tale landscape to explore the emotions of young people who are broken, alone, and grasping for a sense of family. The narration, which offers a dramatic exploration of the trials and tribulations of growing up, tips into melodrama rather than building suspense. This second act features a heroine who has long since shed the innocence of Wendy and who isn't too ladylike to discuss sex or drugs. Above all, she is a survivor, desperate to be strong enough to stand up to the boy who hurt her and to be the leader that her fellow lost kids need. Characters' ethnicities cannot be determined.
An overly ambitious use of Neverland to explore feminism, love, and the heartache inherent in growing up. (Fantasy. 14-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Saedi, Sara: THE LOST KIDS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2018. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A528959772/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6a66cae3. Accessed 19 Dec. 2022.