ARYA'S WRITING & READING BLOG

Someone I hold very dear recently wrote to me about her refusal to go by the cultural standard in America where one must pretend always to be successful, that one's life and work are in great shape and failure nowhere in sight. Failure is intrinsic to human life and we tend to forget that in a competitive society. My friend's statement prompted me to question my own ideas of what success is. To what standards do I hold myself? Who selected them? What does it mean to succeed in life? Are the values of our culture, my values? What do I consider success to be? As a writer, I've long grown accustomed to rejections from journals. It's part of the writing process which writers have to learn to take in stride. I've developed a pretty good sense of equanimity about that by now, taking into consideration a journal's timing, themes, taste, preferences, how many editors are reviewing my work. There are multiple factors to consider and sometimes it seems like a literary acc...

It will come as no news to those struggling to get books published these days that times are especially tough right now. An author friend who finally got an agent last year and is trying to sell what I don't doubt is a well-written novel has struggled through 26, that's right, 26, rejections from publishers since then. For starters, the market is saturated, as more and more people want to write books, even if they are neither readers nor experts nor experienced "writers," even in terms of understanding Grammar and style. AI and self-publishing both support these kinds of authors and they are creating challenges for those more practiced in the field who need to generate interest in and sell their work too. Another big problem is that marketability has taken the place of originality in terms of what publishers now seek. How likeable are you as a writer? How likeable is your style? These are questions that would have made most, if not all authors from the past with any ...

  "Oh,
say,
can
you
see,
by
the
dawn's
early
light,
 What
so
proudly
 we
hail'd
at
the
twilight's
last
gleaming?
 Whose
broad
stripes
and
 bright
stars,
thro'
the
perilous
fight, O'er
the
ramparts
we
watch'd,
were
so
gallantly
streaming?
 And
the
rockets'
red
glare,
the
bombs
bursting
in
air,
 Gave
proof
thro'
the
night
that
our
flag
was
still
there.
 O
say,
does
that
star‐spangled
banner
yet
wave
 O'er
the
land
of
the
free
and
the
home
of
the
brave?" These words, by Francis Scott Key, speak of the glory of war and the loud bombastic cry of victory. There is no glory in war. No joy in celebrating a country contributing to genocides around the world and there is nothing to celebrate about a regime that would take even from the poor in order to satisfy its grotesque greed.  Lady Liberty is ashamed and sad and so many of us stand with her on this holiday, proclaiming that our liberty is in peril, justice has not been served, the American flag ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...