Seattle Pakistan talk, and 2-week column hiatus

Dear colleagues and friends,

My weekly column in the Pakistani daily newspaper The News was not published last Tuesday (March 28) and will not be published this coming Tuesday (April 4), because of unforeseen circumstances. I'm expecting to resume it for publication Tuesday, April 11.

Also, contacts I've made in the Pakistani community around Seattle, where I'm now living, are organizing an event probably to be held either in Seattle or in Bellevue, Washington on April 29, at which I'll speak and have a q-and-a about my book, Alive and Well in Pakistan. You can expect to hear more about this from me within the next week or two. When you do, I hope you'll spread the word and help make the event well attended and successful. We're hoping for good local media coverage as well, of course.

I'm talking to contacts in several other US cities about planning and hosting similar events. More on these as they solidify, too. I hope to do many such events around the US, promoting Alive and Well in Pakistan and at the same time being useful by fulfilling my role as someone who can write and speak across the gulf that divides the West and the Islamic world, and who can humanize Muslims for Western audiences - as I've tried to do in my book.

If you have any ideas or contacts to offer, please email me at ethan@ethancasey.com or phone +1 206 734 4931.