Speaker Zarqa Nawaz
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Zarqa created the series Little Mosque on the Prairie, the world’s first sitcom about Muslims living in the west. The show premiered in 2007 to record ratings on CBC television. In 2005, Zarqa made the ground-breaking NFB documentary Me and the Mosque, which ultimately inspired the television series.
She’s sold pilots to ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox and has written a best-selling memoir, Laughing All the Way to the Mosque. Both her novel Jameela Green Ruins Everything and her CBC Gem web series ZARQA, come out this spring.
Zarqa is also a frequent public speaker on Islam, diversity and comedy writing.
She lives in Regina, Saskatchewan with her long-suffering family.
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