Zahid and Melissa Chaudhry laughing together at a community event. Zahid and Melissa Chaudhry with their two children by the greenhouse, summer 2025.
The Joint Format

Book Us Together

Some stories are only whole when both people who lived them are in the room. Service & Sacrifice is a legal thriller and an intimate love story at once — and the joint keynote or fireside conversation is the format that lets an audience hear both halves as they actually happened: side by side, not in sequence.

This is the format planners tend to ask for once they learn there are two of us — Zahid speaking to what it is to live through 124 days of illegal detention, Melissa to what it is to fight for someone through federal court from the outside. Together, on one stage, presenting at the Veterans For Peace National Convention proved it works.

Watch

Veterans For Peace National Convention

Placeholder — full Veterans For Peace presentation video coming soon.
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Full presentation video — coming soon

Formats

Three ways to bring us in together

Format 01

Service & Sacrifice: A Marriage's Fight for Due Process

A joint keynote telling the full arc — the 25-year retaliation, the ICE detention, and the federal court fight — from both sides of it simultaneously.

Best for: conferences, universities, faith communities, civic & legal organizationsFormat: joint keynote
Format 02

Fireside Conversation

A moderated, conversational version of the same story — well suited to smaller rooms, donor events, and settings that want dialogue and audience Q&A rather than a formal keynote.

Best for: fundraisers, donor events, intimate gatheringsFormat: fireside conversation
Format 03

Panel Presentation

Zahid and Melissa join an existing panel together, offering a single family's account alongside other voices — as demonstrated at the Veterans For Peace National Convention.

Best for: multi-speaker convenings, veterans' and human-rights conferencesFormat: panel
Book Us Together

Request a joint appearance

Please include a few specifics:

  • Your outlet or organization, and audience
  • Event date, location, format, and venue address
  • Speaker's fee budget
  • What you'd like the talk to accomplish

This is the same intake form used across the site — we've marked it for both of us, so your request comes straight to us as a joint booking.