Spirit Seeker, Humor Hunter, Word Nerd

Mission: Let the sacred awaken, and the profane entertain. Vice versa.

Speaking of ridiculous, here’s a ritual display of self-aggrandizement masked as a professional bio:

Alia is a multi-disciplinary performing artist and writer. Though she is what you may call a quadruple threat, she lacks ambition and, as such, is not particularly threatening. She's writing a book of humor essays called The Miraculous Ridiculous. It'll get done some day, probably, but if you ask her when, her eyes glaze over and she goes very quiet. She co-produces and reads new work at her monthly literary salon Da Salon: dasalonison.com. She is co-owner of Humans Being Media, a mission-first video production agency creating artful, heartful, and socially enterprising films that make a powerfully positive impact on our communities and our planet: humansbeingmedia.com. She wifes, she moms, she moonlights as a handywoman with a penchant for design. She sounds busy but actually spends a fair amount of time gazing rapturously at nature like her OG hero, Anne of Green Gables. Also, at her phone.

In the more honest first person, I would like to add that like everyone else, I’m navigating the human realm and trying to muddle my way back to Spirit; most of the time awkwardly, vainly, and in vain, but occasionally with glimmers of grace. I scribe my experiences as I go in the ways I know best, to make some sense of this dazzling, dizzying, and sometimes dismaying human experiment. Observing our fascinating world and its myriad weird inhabitants is a boundless source of mirth and material for me in my own knowing and growing... and in the ongoing inquiry (oh my god, will it never cease? So tedious.) Sometimes I put a lot of words on a page and get lost in the weeds. And then other times there are gems which shimmer and light my way.

I mostly just write to amuse myself, but life is relational and I love a bit of relating. So I have this blog and the aforementioned literary salon Da Salon, to keep it relational. Da Salon is co-produced and co-hosted with my lifelong bestie Shannon DeJong, and features new readers every month presenting original work. We started the salon primarily as motivation to write, but in the process have come to find that art really is better shared! We literally love our little literary salon. It’s a delight.

If my writing hat is a beret, here are some of the other hats I wear, which sometimes make guest appearances in my writing:

Co-founder/producer/scriptwriter/video editor of mission-driven media production company: Humans Being Media (this would be a sturdy straw hat because it’s so practical and worthwhile and keeps me sheltered… and also fed; it is in fact my main source of income.)

Home Transformation Sorceress and Handywoman: (this is probably a hard-hat and N95 respirator mask.)

Singer in French-infused swing jazz quintet The Beguilers: (this would definitely be a tiny hat fascinator with fetching mini lace veil, for this adorably ornamental side-gig.)

On-again off-again actor: I act on stage and screen sometimes (this hat changes, frequently and necessarily, depending on the role. Mostly I’m cast as a bitchy boss lady 10 years older than my actual age, so maybe a cloche hat worn slightly askew.) IMDb

Mother (baseball cap because my kid is a sports fanatic and I pretend to like football in order to impress her.)

Wife (this would maybe be a fetching kerchief tied around my head like the saucy, salty, sensible haus-frau that I am.)

Training and background? Dance and choreography, of all things! It’s a degree which informs my current work little to none, but I can still shake a tail feather when the beat drops. My dance experience ranges from the earnest modern dance companies of NYC to the gogo platforms and poles of Castro district clubs. In addition to dancing, I also trained in and taught yoga for about a decade. Isn’t it charming when white women in their twenties wearing expensive lycra pants teach diluted fitness versions of ancient wisdom practices? I was pretty adorable.