I wish people could understand that there are times to demand money and high fees and then there are times when there is simply no money and that this generation is now experiencing less opportunities because lots of institutions and individuals do not feel they are being ethical

I am someone both broke & poor, a rarity perhaps in the lit world but I have many thoughts on this and it has a lot do with being Iranian and Muslim where labor has different implications. To tell me I am always being taken advantage of if underpaid feels toxic, abusive & untrue

I would be forgotten if I demanded the same fees as some of my white colleagues. I have seen this happen. They want any excuse to erase people of several marginal identifiers like myself.

I balance paid work with unpaid. At this point, I have been a journalist since 1997 and a published author since 2007. I feel okay asking more esp from big corporations. But I do not use a standard fee. That makes no sense to do. The world does not only revolve around me.

I also do lots of free work to give back. We have many theories of nazr & blessings in our culture. Any blessing I get no matter how small I want to return to others tenfold if I can. This spirit has caused Iranians & my Sufi ancestors to not only NOT be appreciated but killed

I think there is a Western obsession with money that creates only more scarcity & never abundance & causes competition & envy & hate. People become so threatened if you cannot eat but still prefer others to eat first. So i sometimes now very quietly secretly help others.

I am not recommending this to others & I respect anyone doing things how you wish. But some recent events have me confused. I recently did a talk for little money for an author’s class on disability. I realized another author I respected said no because they charge 40 times more!

Good for them I guess. If you can get more get more I guess. But there is no way this kind teacher could pay that and now a class full of disabled people will sadly not have the great experience of hearing you. It is sad we cannot always get paid more but yes capitalism is evil