Peace is not a Cop-Out
I read that the origin of war is in the heart. That once the heart is purified, honored, and all beings are held with the same love we ourselves would give a child, that fruitless wars would end. I still firmly believe this. If the worst villain would have an epiphany of the heart, our […]
Now Ruz: The Promise of Spring, the Promise of a New Day
Literally Now Ruz means “new day” in Persian. It is the annual Persian New Year, celebrated usually on March 20th. Its history dates back to Zoroastrianism, a religion that revered the sun and fire. Zarathustra, the prophet of Zoroastrianism, suggested that the new year be celebrated with grand feasts, music and dance. People wear their […]
Homicidal Theocrats: Not just the Stuff of Dystopia
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress” – Frederick Douglass When emotions run this high, I turn to the meditative beauty of poetry. May we have WOMEN – LIFE – FREEDOM. To Live Free When there is nothing left, but to run towards the bullets, To tear […]
A Balancing Act: The Struggling Artist
The inertia boils down to this: I love two opposing forces. What a great novel it would be to marry these two: a demon and a saint; a wolverine and a fairy; a creator and a destroyer. I love my day job, but I also love writing; sadly, the two are all-consuming. My inner muse, […]
The Ecstasy and Pain of Reviews
The shine has not lost its luster. When I type “Goodreads” in my address bar and notice there is another book review for Surrogate Colony or Surrogate Code, my fingers shake. The feeling is raw, real, and ready to tear my heart, and reveal my deepest insecurities. When the review is positive, it is a […]
Writing Poetry Vs. Writing A Novel
This post was originally published on the following link In its elemental form, poetry is a feeling that overcomes a writer, like a fever. It is instinctual, of the spirit, of the building blocks of sound, pattern, rhythm, and word. I believe that poetry is embedded in everything, like primordial DNA that longs to be […]
Midlife Writing
Today, it is official, I am ‘over-the-hill’. Before e-cards were a thing (nobody had a computer then or knew about the internet), I remember shopping at Hallmark with my mother for a card for someone who had just turned 40. I explicitly remember a picture of a hill on the front of the card and […]
Why Sequels are so Darn Hard to Write
When I started Surrogate Colony over seven years ago, I had no idea that there would be a day when it would be published; and that people would actually like it. It is immensely challenging to write a novel. There are just so many aspects to consider: genre, character development, plot development, hitting all the […]
Developmentally editing Surrogate Code
David Bowie: Changes What if we were able to developmentally edit our lives at the time of death? David Bowie’s song, “Changes”, has a line that reads: “Time may change me/ But I can’t trace time.” One of my big whys in life is why we can’t press the rewind button? If life is a […]
The Dystopia of War – A Meditation about the Current War in Ukraine
As a writer of Dystopia, I am disillusioned with war. Mostly because I see its connection to power. War isn’t the only method of power-mongers. Diplomacy is too. When you have power in the hands of those with wrong intentions, words can be just as deceiving as war. I take refuge in poetry today. Today […]