In an open letter to the Writers Guild of America, a group of Middle Eastern writers in the Writers Guild of America West prompted the industry to do better and support more of their stories. 

“Reach out to us,” the letter said. “Get to know our work and most of all, take more chances on us to tell our own stories and contribute to the ones being crafted in writers' rooms all over town.” 

The letter formed out of the WGAW Inclusion Report of 2020 which stated that Middle Eastern writers make up 0.3% of employed TV writers; the ethnicity with the lowest rate of representation. 

The letter was signed by over 50 writers, including writer and producer Evan Mirzai. Since the letter brought attention to the committee, Mirzai notes that producers have been responding to the call. 

“I've gotten several incoming calls from smart producers who saw the letter, who said it made a lot of sense, and are obviously curious to hear our stories,” he says. “But more importantly, they wanted to tell some of these stories in their own right but didn't know how, and that's part of the reason why we did this.”

Mirzai, along with some of the committee's co-chairs like Cameron Ali Fay and Paiman Kalayeh, has been working through the committee to not only bring more attention to Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) stories, but also to support each other. 

“We've been working together, hosting salons, and bringing in guest speakers who are producers, studio executives, representatives — to speak to our Middle Eastern WGA members group because we're all in the guild, and that means we've all sold something, but that doesn't mean that everyone is consistently working or knows how or has the proper access,” he says. 

His writing started making waves after making the Blacklist for the first time in 2012. Since then, Mirzai founded the House of M productions, a production company dedicated to supporting diverse stories, representing talent like first generation Nigerian American comedy writer Amber Okeh. He began his career as an intern for Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, World War Z) and later producer Laura Ziskin (Spider-Man, Lee Daniels' The Butler), before becoming the feature literary coordinator at the Gersh Agency. Throughout his experience in the film industry, Mirzai noticed how his identity as a gay Persian man was overlooked. He wanted to make his background visible because it is important to the stories he shares and the work he creates. 

“I had a showrunner meeting to get hired for the TV staff as a writer a few years ago, and I was told by way of the grapevine one of the reasons I didn't get it was that I was a straight white male, and that's when I realized I had to make it clear that I'm actually a gay Persian,” he says. “When I started making it clear that I'm Middle Eastern and I really believe in my heritage, I speak Farsi and that's important to me, I was told at the time by basically the town that Middle Eastern did not count as a diversity, which I thought was pretty insane because we’re culturally significant.” 

Since that moment, he’s been dedicated to bringing MENA voices together to show their significance in entertainment and the value of their voice. The committee began out of conversations with fellow MENA writers. At a party, Mirzai turned to Arash Amel (A Private War) and questioned why there was no diversity group for Middle Eastern writers, to which he replied: “If you guys can do it, I’m in.” 

To create the committee under WGAW, there needed to be a certain number of people on the board as members at large and as committee chairs. 

“There was just enough of us around that we were like, ‘hey, we're working in film and TV. We're here. Why don't we make our committee?’” Mirzai says. “And so last fall, we got approval and we founded our group.”

The mission of the group isn’t just to tell enough Middle Eastern stories, but also to support MENA writers in general. Just because someone is from a certain ethnic background, it doesn’t mean they should be limited to stories about their culture. 

“I think that’s the beauty of being a writer is you can write those fun stories,” he says. 

For example, Mirzai has two scripts he’s working on: One is a political sci-fi-action-comedy called Bad Ass and Blind Eye and the other is a half-hour dramedy about his life growing up gay and Persian in suburbia called Slice of Life.

“What we really want to be recognized is that Middle Eastern writers are writers just like any other writer,” he says. “Although we all have epics that we want to tell about the old country, a lot of us just want to be taken seriously as candidates for network TV, streamers, or even cable comedy. Middle Eastern people can be funny.”

His desire for sharing stories that go beyond the stereotypical idea of a Middle Eastern story is best shown in Slice of Life. The story shares what it was like growing up in a Persian household in the U.S. He wants to share what he did, what hip hop music he listened to when delivering pizza in the neighborhood, what it was like navigating his sexuality, and being the son of an immigrant. 

“This story was catharsis, in a way that I could look at my high school years with a little bit of distance, and now I can make it funny and kind of charming,” he says, “and hopefully people can see that there is entertainment in a true story, and this is my true story as an Iranian American.”

When it comes to inspiring the next generation of storytellers, Mirzai likes to lead by example. Representation is important to him because you never know who is watching. 

“For many years, entertainment was homogenizing. You'd see one type of people or one type of story without realizing that all types of people are watching that,” he says.

One of the quotes he lives by is paraphrased from Michael Keaton: “If you don’t bet on yourself, you’re fucked.” 

Mirzai states: “I wanted to bet on myself and I did, and I want to show other people that they can do the same thing."