Our awesome Creative Director and Copywriter, Ameena Meer, is our featured artist this month. Her strategic and conceptual work has launched high-impact brands and products with lasting influence. Her strength is expressing emotion that inspires action. As a writer, she knows intuitively that a good story changes minds. Ameena believes the most effective communication is rooted in love for the consumer, respect for the brand and change for the good. She has been a copywriter, thinker, conceptor and/or creative director for Avon, Calvin Klein, Coty, The Gap, Estee Lauder, Donna Karan, Macy’s, Pzifer, L’Oreal, The Navajo Nation, Homes for the Homeless and Proctor & Gamble. Natural brands she has worked on include Jurlique, Under the Canopy, Kama Ayurveda, and 5S for Shiseido.

A conversation between Ameena Meer and Michelle Edelman.

ME: Ameena, we have a long history together. We are so excited to be working with you again. We are also extremely excited to have you as our featured artist this month!
 
ME: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell a bit about yourself. 
AM: I had a great childhood. I was lucky enough to have grown up in the 70s when we had a lot of freedom — no cell phones, no social media — and I spent a lot of time riding horses off in the fields, reading voraciously and discovering new cities with friends with no one watching my every move. Though my parents are from India, my grandparents and eventually, my parents, were diplomats so we had a very international, multicultural, multi-religious household. While I was raised as a Muslim, my father was a scientist (thus a rationalist) and my mother was always asking questions and exposing us to other faiths and people. I have family members across the racial, political and religious spectrum. I feel like I was always part of world where everyone had different perspectives but we all loved and respect each other so it was a very open place.

ME: What inspired you to become a writer?

AM: When I was 6, I was voted most likely to become the school librarian because I had read every book in our little school library! As soon as I could write, I did. I was obsessed with the idea of turning material experiences — taste, touch, scent, sounds — into words that could leap off the page and drag you into the story. My mother always encouraged a lot of reading so writing always came very easily to me.
 
ME: Who is your greatest influence?

AM: That is always changing — at the moment, my thinking is influenced by social activists like Malcolm X or Bernie Sanders or the Dalai Lama — but I also adored Wayne Dyer, I listened to his books on CD (back in the day) sometimes over and over again. I love Marianne Williamson and I re-read A Course in Miracles constantly. But as a writer, I love dense sensual writing that sucks you in — whether it’s poetry or fiction. I used to say that if — like a Blues musician — I went down to the crossroads at midnight and typed in my best riff and then handed my laptop back over my shoulder, the Devil would give me the power to write like Michael Ondatjee or Rumi or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s writing so lyrical and moving, it’s like listening to music.

Source: https://goo.gl/C1qOcc