Sierra Prasada

Sierra Prasada is a Washington, D.C.-based author, journalist, editor, and teacher. While living in and reporting on the Middle East, she reported on Lebanon for radio and magazines and gained proficiency in spoken and written Arabic, and wrote her first book, Creative Lives: Portraits of Lebanese Artists.

When she agreed to embark on the writing of Creative Lives, Prasada said, “I had already come to feel deeply connected with Lebanon, and I saw in this project several opportunities—to draw on my own experience in the arts, to look at the country’s modern history from an alternative viewpoint, and to ask less informed readers to reconsider the stereotypes about Lebanon and the Middle East that are unfortunately still so common.”

Previously a contributor of curricula to the New York Times Learning Network and the Chronicle of Higher Education, Prasada is most recently coauthor of The Creative Compass: Writing Your Way from Inspiration to Publication. The book is a helpful guide for beginning writers that focuses on five stages of creativity.

Prasada is also in the midst of a decade-long, online endeavor called the 20th Century Project, exploring cultural history through literature, a screenplay adaptation, and other fiction and nonfiction projects. She also teaches writing and Arabic at the Graduate School USA.

Sierra Prasada and her father Dan Millman discuss the genesis of their book, The Creative Compass, which inspired this workshop: