ihath

About a week ago, my father and I were waiting in line to attend a movie in the Vancouver International Film Festival. We were chatting in Arabic, when the man standing behind us asked us "Where are you guys from". Iraq! we answered in unison. The young man replied about how bad he feels about what is going on in Iraq and some other blah blah that most Canadians tend to say when they hear the word Iraq. My dad and I glanced at each other and thought "Here we go again .... yes yes, we feel bad about it too, we are sorry that mentioning our country of origin makes you feel sad". But the young man was polite and seemed eager to chat and so my dad and I were happy to engage him in a discussion. Pretty soon we started talking about Iraqi culture and geography. Then the young man asked "Can you give me the name of a famous Iraqi author?". I paused to think about all the Iraqi novels I have read attempting to pick a good recommendation for this young man, but my dad jumped in and said without hesitation "My daughter, right here" and he pointed a finger at me.

My face turned red, I started to shake my head in denial, "No no no". The young man's eyes widened and he asked in excitement "Are you an author?". "Errrrr, well!, not really, errrr, I have a book coming out in a couple of weeks".

It was the first time that I came close to calling myself an author. Thank you dad for outing me like this. Ok I do have a book, here it is:

For three years I have been walking around with this secret inside my head. More like a wish or a dream. Very few people knew about my little secret and I kept it mostly to myself. This thing grew and mutated and changed and then it turned into reality that is ready to come out into the world.

I can't describe the emotions that I feel right now. The closest I can describe it is that I feel like I had just given birth to a baby. At times I feel moments of intense joy, "Oh! my god! this is really happening", I say to myself. Other times I feel intense fear and anxiety, "Oh my god! people will read it, what if it is a miserable failure, what if it is a success, both options terrify me". It reminds of the hormonal phase following a birth. Sometimes I laugh for no reason, other times I cry for no reason. I am walking around with a feeling of emptiness.

Hello World! I don't know if I am ready for this, but I present to you my baby, he is orange, kinda cute and very innocent. I present to you

Don't Shoot! ... I have another story to tell you
By Elen Ghulam
ISBN 1430302011

If you live in Vancouver, then you are invited to the book launch party
November 4th, 4 pm,
Palestinian Community Center.
1874 Kingsway Vancouver.

For all of you who would like to link to the book on your blog I present to you an assortment of links you can use below, but any link or any mention of this book on your websites would be appreciated. Simply copy and paste from one of the text boxes below into your website.

<<<<<<<<< sample html code >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Large image with link to amazon like earlier in the post
<br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F1430302011%3Fie%3DUTF8&tag=ihathlosinmys-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer" src="http://ihath.com/uploaded_images/orangeSmudgeSmall-793975.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />

Small image with link to amazon



<br /> <iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=ihathlosinmys-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1430302011&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr&nou=1" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br />

Text link like this: Don't Shoot! ... I have another story to tell you

<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430302011?ie=UTF8&tag=ihathlosinmys-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1430302011">Don't Shoot! ... I have another story to tell you</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=ihathlosinmys-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1430302011" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br />

Small image with link to Powells bookstore


<br /> <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-1430302011-1" target="blank"> <img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="ihath's book" src="http://www.ihath.com/images/orangeSmudgeVerySmall.jpg" border="0" /> </a><br /> <br /> <br />

Long time ago, before there was a blog and before there was ihath, in year 2002, people were talking about war on Afghanistan. News papers, news anchors, commentators and people were discussing the mechanics of war. I was walking around with a broken heart thinking of all the people in Afghanistan that will be killed, all the widows and orphans that will be created, families that will be displaced in a country that has already suffered so much. But in mass media land there seemed to be very little concern for Afghani life. As usual, if you are brown you don't matter in North American media. Your death is a mere statistic, not worth mentioning. As usual, I was feeling disgusted with the racist media coverage of the situation and the complete disregard for brown human life. There seemed to be a single exception to there rule, a single writer that mentioned concern for human life, all human life both brown and white in his weekly column. I started clipping his columns. I was showing these clippings to my friend Mordecai during yet another anti-war rally. "His writing is radical" I said as I was pointing out examples from the clippings. "How does he get away with it?" I remarked, considering that the publication was owned by CanWest the same media conglomerate that stifles a big portion of Canadian publications. "You have to write him a letter to express your appreciation" said Mordecai. "But, he is a serious writer, why would he care about what I think of him" was my reply. Mordecai shook his head and said assertively: "People like him get lots of hate mail, he might appreciate a positive letter of appreciation in return."

Two days later I sat down to write the first email I had written to a writer or a journalist. My intention was to write a brief email saying "I read your columns and I appreciate them", but I ended up writing a longer and a more emotional email. As I hit the send button I wondered if Geoff Olson the regular writer and cartoonist at the Vancouver Courier would even read it.

Few days later I sat down to read the next Geoff Olson article and received a shock to my system. The article was subtitled "Email from reader helps columnist maintain fire in the belly". The emotional article contains several quotes from my email and mentions my name towards the end.
As I read the article, my heart was pumping and I couldn't contain my excitement. It might seem silly to be so titilated by a mention in an article, but I felt in a state of euphoria for about 10 days afterwards. I clipped that article as well and added it to my collection.



I learned a lesson on the power of positive feedback.
Two days ago I opened an old notebook and found all the clippings I had collected. I was reflecting on all the things that had happened since. I had started a blog and received my own fair share of both hate email and positive email. I was thinking again about how the positive emails helped me continue writing even when I wanted to give up.

So today I wish to thank all the people that have bothered to send me encouraging emails over the years since I started this blog.

How has the times changed. During the Israeli war on Lebanon, the Vancouver Courier didn't even mention the war. If you read the publication during that time you would have thought there was no war at all in the world. Geoff Olson wrote about astrology and road rage and some other crucial subjects which no doubt somebody else is clipping but not me. I guess when you work for a CanWest publication the fire in the belly is allowed to last for only so long. I myself during that time didn't find the strength to write anything because all I could think of saying was "I feel so depressed, this is so depressing, I hate the world". Non of it seemed very useful or constructive and so I chose not to write at all.