ARYA'S WRITING & READING BLOG

We are all filled with opinions, as plentiful as soot, which are often the byproduct, or garbage, of our obsessions, the result of long-held habits like watching cop shows, and what we have gleaned from that, consciously and unconsciously. What do opinions matter? Not at all, except when we recognize how people kill for them. Wage war for them. Sacrifice their own lives for a belief. A belief. An opinion. Mind bubbles. What if, in chatting with a fellow activist, for example, I discover that she supports Israel, is sympathetic to its cause. While I am deeply opposed to the genocide in Palestine, my companion sees it as a necessary exclamation of history and nature, mere necessity. Do we argue until our faces redden and one or both of us walks away, or do we set aside the dagger of our differences, doubling down instead on the more important imperative--treating the other as a human being regardless, inquiring about them as if their lives matter, listening sincerely, offering no judgmen...

Years ago, after my first divorce, my friend Peter took me aside and showed me a list he'd written up for me of affirmations he suggested I repeat before the mirror on a daily basis. The idea seemed kind of foolish and desperate to me at the time. I couldn't relate to the words, which didn't make sense to me. I felt overwhelmed with feelings, and language felt like little more than an intrusion on the process of letting those feelings go. Grateful to Peter for his thoughtfulness, I folded up the piece of paper he'd given me on which his positive sayings were written and put it aside. A few years after that, while getting ready for a move, I found the piece of paper with Peter's affirmations and re-read them. They were simple--phrases like, "I am worthy." "Today will be a good day." "I believe good things will come to me." By then these daily affirmations were a part of me as they are common to the 12-step AA program to which I and many ...

Youngstown, Ohio has a rich history of activism, from the days of the early 20th century, when steelworkers fought for higher pay, to revolts during the Civil Rights movement, to protests to preserve jobs that came in the wake of the decline of the steel industry in the 1970s. And of course there was the infamous shooting and killing of students at Kent State during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration that launched the 70s. Other movements followed at the turn of the century, such as Occupy Youngstown. And so, it should be no surprise that we now stand together protesting the trump regime in 2025. Youngstown is not and will not remain silent.  A diverse, peaceful crowd met in front the U.S. district courthouse on Market Street, March 8, 2025, with creative signs like the ones below. One, carried by someone who had borne the same sign eight years ago, read, "Trump out now." There were others, like, "We need a leader who cares about America the beautiful"; "Stop th...

Few people (on the Left anyway) have failed to realize one month into the new regime that we are under siege. The dictator has gutted Medicaid; devastated federal workers and agencies; is proposing citizenship, the equivalent of a green card, for rich foreigners for a $5-million dollar fee, in order to create a world class of greedy goons to overtake this country. Most heinously, he recently posted a video proposing "Trump Gaza," the obscenity of which one cannot begin to address. He is stealing from the American people as we speak. Protest and resistance are the right of every American and the duty of poets, writers and artists who envision themselves a voice for the disenfranchised. FRIDAY FEB. 28, 24-HOUR ECONOMIC BLACKOUT. Take a stand. #protest #resist And check out this website to see what's coming up next: https://thepeoplesunionusa.com/ "I would remind writers to see themselves as witnesses, and to always speak the truth to the people, as well as truth to. po...

Here's my favorite section of a recent four-star review of my novel, Punk Disco Bohemian, which appears in both Goodreads and Amazon and is written by Iranian-born writer Neda Aria. "A coming-of-age story steeped in the hedonism and upheaval of the 1970s, Punk Disco Bohemian plunges the reader into an era of shifting social norms, disco-lit dance floors, and radical self-invention. Ali is at the center of it all, navigating a world that offers both exhilarating freedom and unexpected dangers. She parties, she experiments, she stumbles. Through Jenkins’ unembellished prose, we follow Ali’s journey without romanticism or nostalgia—just the raw, unfiltered reality of youth in search of meaning. "Jenkins is not interested in the usual sentimental beats of the genre. Instead, she offers a protagonist whose self-destructive tendencies are as compelling as her yearning for connection. Ali’s encounters—with lovers, friends, and strangers—are transactional in nature, fueled by a m...

California is burning. The world is on fire, with wars and suffering everywhere, and one wonders, has it ever been so bad, and what am I supposed to do?  What am I supposed to do is a question I ask myself daily as a concerned human being on the planet and as a poet and writer. The current status of Mother Earth and of the nation feel virtually paralyzing. We are undergoing a big fire of change. So, what to do. As an American Red Cross volunteer disaster caseworker, I am mulling the possibilities of "deploying" to L.A., even as the situation there worsens with winds picking up, more homes being decimated and more human and animal bodies being uncovered even as I type this. Trauma abounds among those who have lost loves ones and homes and among helpers too, whose empathy in the midst of this chaos can feel like a perpetual shared wound.  On top of that, some of us always feel we can never do enough.  One side of me tells myself, helping Californians in this instance will b...