Angella Nazarian was born in Tehran, Iran in the late 1960s. Her father, who worked in a bazaar as a trader and importer, was born in Rasht, a port town in Northern Iran. Angella remembers her family blending both tradition and modernity in their daily lives. Believing in the traditional roles of women, Angella’s maternal grandmother wore a chador, a traditional veil worn by Persian women. While she had minimal formal education as a girl, at age 78 when she came to live in Los Angeles, Angella’s maternal grandmother hired a private tutor to teach her both English and Hebrew. Angella’s paternal grandmother embraced modernity in a different way; a widow who raised Angella’s father alone, Angella’s paternal grandmother loved western clothing and was known for sharing her thoughts and opinions freely and with self-assured candor.

Much of Angella’s upbringing for the first 11 years of her life in Iran was affected by the rule of the Shah, under whom Anti-Jewish sentiment was neither overt nor widespread. As the Shah was enchanted by western ideals and progressive tendencies, Jews in Iran were granted equality under the law and were integrated as participants in mainstream society. By 1960, Angella recalls that Jewish families were well-educated and well to do, by which they would take vacations and study at universities in Europe or the United States. Her family took joy in visits to the Caspian Sea, playing in nature and under the stars, watching American sitcoms, and partaking in the custom of visiting friends each year during Purim.

She is a non-fiction author and has written four books. Her first book, Life as a Visitor, chronicled her departure from Iran and life as a refugee in California. Her second book, Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary Women of the World, was a collection of essays about female role models. Her third book, Visionary Women, highlights the lives of twenty female luminaries of modern times. In her fourth book "Creative Couples: Collaborations that Changed History", Nazarian explores the various forms a couple can take and dives deep into the stories of fifteen couples who motivate one another, work together, and change lives as a team.