Roya Hakakian is a lauded Persian poet turned television producer with programs like "60 Minutes." She became well known for her memoir, "Journey from the Land of No" in 2004, which won Elle Magazine's Reader's Choice Award.
She writes frequent essays on Iranian issues in the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and on NPR. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008, Roya published Assassins of the Turquoise Palace in 2011, a non-fiction account of the Mykonos restaurant assassinations of Iranian opposition leaders in Berlin. Her new book is "A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious."