Meet The Author Changing The Narrative For Women In Media: Iman Hariri-Kia

Hariri-Kia’s journey in media begins far before her 2022 novel. Pre-AHOG, Hariri-Kia always knew she was destined to be a writer. Born and raised in NYC, Hariri-Kia is a first-gen Iranian woman who grew up in a community of Iranian expats — a community that ultimately shaped her identity and career. She attended a Manhattan private school, where the future author “felt like a fish out of water” amidst the sea of fellow students.

“You feel a further calling to connect with your culture, your community, to feel like you’re a part of something greater than yourself,” she shared. “But you also have this sense of urgency to assimilate – to experience – America the way that your peers do, and to relate to your peers in a greater sense, so I think that all people who share that experience feel somewhat fractured.”

This experience is so widely shared amongst children of immigrants, and is an important conversation often left out of the mainstream media. Hariri-Kia resolved to change this, embarking on a journey of writing in ways that challenge identity and the standard of representation, especially for women of color.

And BTW she’s pretty darn good at this. Beyond AHOG, Hariri-Kia is published across the web, from Vogue to The Cut, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and more, using her work to examine the stereotypes placed on fictional characters of color and actual real-life people. In fact, her first piece (which detailed her experiences with islamophobia) was published when she was just 15(!!!) years old in the now-defunct HuffPost Teen. I mean – if that doesn’t show you how talented she is, we don’t know what will.

Her writing took her through college and straight into the arms of the ever-alluring media industry as she assumed some rather unglamorous positions (like throwing out her boss’s cigarettes and alcohol before the office opened) and shared all of the nitty-gritty pieces of her life with the world. She eventually took a brief hiatus to testify at City Hall in support of a ban on detox teas and diet products in NYC, which led to a feature on The Today Show, further solidifying her notoriety and influence.

As Hariri-Kia continued growing her career, eventually leveling up to senior editor positions, her mind filled with a novel concept – no, literally a concept for a novel. She wanted to write something that could sum up all of her career experiences and industry gossip and – most importantly – feature a Middle Eastern protagonist. Thus, AHOG was born.

AHOG was the culmination of everything Hariri-Kia sought as a young reader. The book features Noora, a 22-year-old Iranian-American amateur blogger and aspiring writer trying to make it in The Big Apple. She lands her dream job at Vinyl magazine as an assistant to the powerhouse editor-in-chief, Loretta James, and can’t wait to finally level up from tutoring wealthy private school kids to get by. As it turns out, this job is far from easy, and Noora must dig into her own morals and identity to determine her future path.

“It was really important to me to write an own voice’s novel. I grew up obsessed with young adult and realistic fiction, but I never found a Middle Eastern MC (main character) who acted and behaved the ways the white best friend protagonist acted and behaved,” Hariri-Kia shared. “I found that if a Middle Eastern character did appear in books, they were often reduced to their identity or their stories were to focus on them grappling with race and religion, and I found that to be really tokenizing. I wanted to write a main character who was Middle Eastern but that wasn't all they were, and their identity wasn’t the driving force behind the plot.”

She continued, “I wanted to write a Middle Eastern MC who was messy and lovable and relatable and infuriating and made mistakes and owned up to them and actually had character growth. And, you know, I painted the world of AHOG the way that I experienced media in real life, which is full of rich cultural diversity. There are characters of all races, identities, sexualities, abilities and cultures in this book – but their plotlines and their storylines do not rely on those identities.”

And AHOG truly bridges the gap between the diversity of real life and the typical white, cut-and-dry protagonist that most readers are far too used to seeing. So many people ache to see their unique identities represented in the media, and readers needed the right, relatable protagonist to truly sweep them off their feet. It was Noora’s time to shine, and AHOG took off.

“So many people from different areas of both my life and career showed up to support the book. And, I mean, readers who have sort of been with me since my Teen Vogue days; Middle Eastern readers who found me when I was writing personal essays into the abyss; readers who found me through #BookTok during the pandemic,” Hariri-Kia said.

In today’s social media climate, #BookTok can be a huge make-or-break moment for authors. Whether you’re a media pro, aspiring writer, or just-for-fun reader (🙌), #BookTok has become an incredible source of connection for an otherwise isolating activity. Even TikTok-founded virtual book clubs have gone IRL since the end of the pandemic, bringing human connection into the reading experience. However, as with any small community, word spreads quickly – so you better watch what you say.

“I love the #BookTok community. I have been very lucky to just connect with a niche community of readers who have just been kind and supportive to me and encouraged me to keep going when I wanted to give up,” Hariri-Kia said, smiling. But her love for the community comes with a heads-up for authors joining it. “I think a lot of authors are hopping on the app now, or in the last year, and trying to find their community but find it uncomfortable to market their books just by talking about them because #BookTok is a readers’ space. And the number one rule of authors on #BookTok is you have to respect the readers’ space.”

She explained, “you are not there to argue with readers in the comments. You are not there to seek out readers or redemption or cause any sort of conflict. Like you are there to be respectful. And I think that’s why authors are a little nervous on the app. I think I'm in a very lucky position because I joined the app as a reader before my book had come out, so I was on the app getting book recs and commenting on people’s videos and enjoying reading for the first time in years to the extent to which I was reading.”

As a community-member-turned-author, Hariri-Kia took advantage of her insider knowledge of the media and publishing industries and began sharing it with her followers. “I started talking about the process of publishing my book as it was happening in real time,” she said. “So I feel like a lot of the readers from #BookTok were along for the ride with me before the book even existed, and we sort of had this support system set up where I would tell them doubts I was having and conversations about the cover and the title and sort of give them a backseat on the process, which I’ve always wanted myself.”

Hariri-Kia’s advice applies to way more than authors, too. Creators and businesses won’t thrive without an engaged following (whether that’s virtual or in-person), so the ability to connect with your audience is paramount for any level of success. After all – would you get a manicure from someone who knows nothing about manicures, and doesn’t even care about them? Probably not!

We love watching Hariri-Kia’s growth over social media, and can’t wait for what her next books (that’s right – TWO books are in the works!) will entail. It’s so inspiring to watch talented women, like Hariri-Kia, claim their space in any place of inequality and totally dominate it.