by Johanna Cano
Melody Moezzi is an activist, speaker, columnist, attorney, visiting assistant professor at UNCW, and most recently, the author of her newest book The Rumi Prescription.
Her impressive resume, and writing endeavors, were guided by her desire to make a difference in the world and finding different ways of attempting to do so.
“I do what I do because I want to change the world, and I’m optimistic (some may say delusional) enough to still think that I can,” Moezzi says. “More specifically, I want to make the city, state, country, and planet we live in a more just and empathetic place. That’s why I became an activist as a teenager, and it’s why I became a lawyer as a young adult. But I’m impatient and the law moves painfully slowly, and aside from hula-hooping, writing is my only other talent.”
Moezzi wrote her first book, War on Error: Real Stories of American-Muslims, while attending Emory University School of Law. The book was aimed at combating the rising hostility and discrimination targeting Muslims, and especially Muslim-Americans after 9/11, she says.
“I quickly realized that it was much easier to change minds as a writer than it was to change the law as a lawyer. And bonus: writing was a lot more fun than lawyering,” Moezzi says.
So, she decided to become a full-time writer. “I feel incredibly blessed that this has worked for me, and I’m grateful to everyone who has helped make my career possible, because writing is indeed a solitary profession, but making a career out of it is not something I ever could have achieved on my own,” she says. “My family sacrificed for this; my friends encouraged me to keep at it when things felt hopeless, and a whole boatload of strangers who have since become friends have supported me along the way.”
In her new book, The Rumi Prescription, Moezzi translates and examines the work of the 13th-century Persian poet and applies her discoveries to her own life.
Moezzi is currently on a book tour in many locations in North Carolina and California.
Read the full interview: https://www.wilmamag.com/living-guide