In 2014, Asra Najam left her job as a paralegal to take an unpaid speechwriting internship for then-Vice President Biden. She fell in love with the field—and the rest is history. Over the years, she’s had a portfolio ranging from drafting letters on behalf of President Obama to speeches for executives at the Obama Foundation.
Now, she works for Fenway Strategies, a speechwriting and communications company founded by former head speechwriter for Obama, Jon Favreau.
Hayat spoke with the Pakistani-born, Michigan-raised, and Chicago-based writer about pursuing her dream of writing, working as a writer in the Obama White House, and more.
How did you end up in speechwriting, and in government? Was that always the dream? How did it come about?
When I was a kid, I really enjoyed listening to speeches. I loved watching the news and seeing how people communicated with other people—whether they were old presidential speeches, or celebrity commencement keynotes, or United Nation General Assembly addresses. I think I noticed pretty early on that to deliver a powerful and impactful speech was its own unique craft.
As a student, I explored the idea of journalism as a career, but it was when President Obama was first elected that I saw speechwriting as a field that people can also go into when they want to help others use their words in a meaningful way. Because I’ve always identified as a writer, I thought that this was something I could be good at. I figured if I already loved to write, how amazing would it be if I could make a career out of it?
It was definitely easier said than done.
I don’t think there’s really one right path into speechwriting. I was an economics major in college, and though I found it interesting, I realized after college that it was not something I wanted to do with my life. My peers all had strong ideas about what they wanted: law, consulting, finance. When I realized I didn’t actually want to pursue any of those, it was really tough.
When I graduated college, I moved to DC to work as a paralegal. I knew it just wasn’t what I wanted to do, and I had a friend who was interning at the White House who encouraged me to apply.
Luckily enough, I was accepted, and was placed on the speechwriting team for Vice President Biden. That’s how I got my start. I worked very closely with his incredibly hardworking staff and followed them around at events—that’s how I fell in love with the idea of being a speechwriter.
I’d like to hear more about your Pakistani roots. Do you still have family in Pakistan? Are you ever able to visit?
I was born in Pakistan and moved to the US when I was about 5 years old. Most of my family is still in there, but it’s been over a decade since I last went. With the pandemic, it’s been hard to go, but I know I want to visit soon.
Recently I had some family visit the US from Pakistan and it meant so much to be able to reconnect. I often wish it was it was easier to travel back and forth to see them—that it was cheaper to fly, that there was some technology that would allow us to teleport back and forth. I think life would feel so much more full if those in-person interactions were there. But that’s the immigrant experience—there are sacrifices when you move halfway across the world from your loved ones.
What advice do you have for other young people, especially young immigrants or those from immigrant families, who are interested in jobs in the government, or as writers?
It’s really important to take calculated risks when it comes to entering into a space like this.
For me, I knew I was taking a big risk to pursue this field because I had a full-time job that I quit because I just needed to quit to be a White House intern. I just had a gut instinct that this was what I was supposed to do.
But I really had to think critically about how I was actually going to do it. When I left my job to be a White House intern, I didn’t have a stream of income and I had to think about saving and housing and what I would do to get by—and what my contingency plans would be if things didn’t work out.
It was hard to explain that to my parents. They didn’t understand why I would quit my job to do an unpaid internship, but I was able to explain to them that I had already explored writing in a lot of different ways throughout high school and college. I know there’s a lot of pressure that South Asian and other immigrant kids get from our families to be a doctor or be a lawyer—whatever it is—but I think there’s a way you can explore whatever you want to do that isn’t shocking or jarring to your family. For me, that meant showing them that this was the work I was already kind of doing my whole life. I pointed to previous experiences I had writing for a newspaper in high school and college, and it helped them see how important writing was to me.
If you’re a college student, exploring a field like this early on should be part of your calculations. If you’re interested in speechwriting, you could join student government and try helping people with their speeches when they run for positions. It’s a good way to get a small portfolio and start moving in the direction you want to go.
In our community, I know it is not very common thing to be a writer, but I really believe there’s a way to do it if it’s your passion. Once you feel comfortable with your ability and your portfolio, it might be time to start taking those risks.
Do you like public speaking, or do you prefer just writing?
I love the idea of me being up there and speaking…but I definitely get nervous when I do it. It’s one of those things where all those nerves are in your head before you go up, but when I actually do it, I become a lot more confident.
Working for a firm that gives tips on how to give a speech and what goes into speaking has made me a much more confident speaker as well. And I like to use some of the tips we give our clients. One tip that has really helped me is realizing that the audience doesn’t want you to fail. No matter where you are speaking—at a picnic, or a wedding, or a graduation—the audience probably doesn’t have many expectations of you. They’re just there to have a good time. And I think that’s a great way to take the edge off. They want you to do well, and knowing that should make you feel more self-assured.
What’s your favorite part of what you do? What’s the most difficult?
My favorite part is when you are really, really passionate about a speech, or a few sentences in a speech, and the speaker delivers it in a really powerful way, or it gets quoted in the news, or someone retweets it…that is really exciting for me.
What’s tough about this job is that at the end of the day, you’re writing for someone else. Speechwriting isn’t about the writer, it’s about the speaker. And sometimes the speaker comes back and they don’t like anything at all. You work so hard on something, and then it becomes something completely different.
But here’s how I think about it: even if they don’t deliver something you loved, they still relied on you to get their voice out and to help them be their best self. It’s a field where you have to learn to separate yourself from your writing. Your writing can’t be the most precious thing in the entire world to you, because at the end of the day, the speech isn’t about you—it’s about the person delivering it.
What’s your plan for the next few years? What’s in the future for you?
That’s a good question…I really like this job, and I’d really like to expand my capacity in doing it. Right now, I’m mostly doing writing, but I’d love to get into how our business works, how the leaders at my firm launched their business, and how they manage it day-to-day.
I’m also very interested in exploring different mediums of writing—like writing screenplays and short stories and novels. That’s my next personal goal!
Thank you so much for talking with us!
Need speechwriting services? Check out Fenway Strategies.
