Reza Aslan, a writer and scholar of religions, holds degrees in religious studies from Santa Clara University, Harvard University and UC Santa Barbara, and an MFA from the University of Iowa, where he was Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the boards of the Ploughshares Fund, Abraham’s Vision (an interfaith peace organization) and PEN USA. He wrote the best-selling, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which has been translated into thirteen languages, and How to Win a Cosmic War (published in paperback as Beyond Fundamentalism). He has edited an upcoming anthology titled Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East. Aslan is president and CEO of Aslan Media Inc, which disseminates news on the Middle East and its diaspora communities. He is contributing editor at The Daily Beast and an associate professor in the Department Creative Writing at UC Riverside.