Category Archives: Interviews
Expectation Underneath the Emotion
In The Reset Self, you help readers understand how early family dynamics, social pressures, and constant performance create resentment, anxiety, and burnout. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I wrote this book because I kept seeing the same pattern over and over again, in myself and in other people. Smart, capable, self-aware individuals who were doing everything “right,” but still felt exhausted, resentful, or quietly disconnected from their own lives.
The common thread wasn’t a lack of effort or insight. It was that they were trying to improve a version of themselves that was never really theirs to begin with.
Most of us are living in roles we learned early on, roles that helped us stay safe, be accepted, or be loved. But those roles don’t disappear when we grow up. They just get more sophisticated. And eventually, they start to cost us.
This book exists because I wanted to offer something different. Not another way to fix yourself, but a way to question who is doing the fixing in the first place.
You make a distinction between the “role-self” and the real person. How did you come to recognize that difference in your own life or work?
It didn’t happen all at once. It was more of a slow realization that the way I was showing up in different areas of my life felt… consistent, but not necessarily true.
I could see how my reactions were patterned. Predictable. Almost scripted. Especially in moments of stress or conflict. And when I looked closer, those patterns always traced back to something learned, not something chosen.
That’s when the distinction became clear. There’s the version of you that was built through conditioning, through expectations, roles, and adaptation. And then there’s something underneath that, something quieter but more stable.
The “role-self” reacts automatically. The real person has choice.
Once you see that difference, even briefly, you can’t unsee it. And that’s where real change starts.
Of all the tools you introduce, which one tends to create the biggest shift for readers when they try it?
The biggest shift usually comes from something very simple: recognizing the expectation underneath the emotion.
Most people think they’re reacting to what happened. But they’re actually reacting to what they believed should have happened.
When someone starts catching that in real time, “What did I expect here?” everything changes. Because suddenly the reaction makes sense. It’s not random. It’s not a personality flaw. It’s a script being broken.
That moment creates space. And once there’s space, there’s choice.
It’s subtle, but it’s one of the most powerful shifts in the entire process.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from The Reset Self?
That they are not broken.
Not in a surface-level, reassuring way, but in a very literal sense. The exhaustion, the anxiety, the resentment, it’s not evidence of something wrong with them. It’s evidence of something learned that no longer fits.
If someone can walk away with that and start questioning the roles they’ve been living inside of instead of trying to perfect them, then the book has done its job.
Because from that point on, they’re no longer trying to fix themselves. They’re starting to come back to themselves.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
You don’t need a better self. You need freedom from the one you were trained to be.
Most people spend their entire lives feeling lost, anxious, overwhelmed, or painfully disconnected from themselves, not because something is wrong with them, but because they’ve been living inside a conditioned identity that never truly belonged to them.
The roles you learned in childhood, the Good One, the High-Achiever, the Strong One, the Fixer, the Peacemaker, helped you survive, but now they keep you stuck in cycles of self-sabotage, people-pleasing, perfectionism, overthinking, emotional trauma patterns, anxiety, and self-doubt. These roles shape your decisions, your relationships, your boundaries, and even your sense of purpose.
The Reset Self introduces a revolutionary perspective: You’re not failing to “find inner peace,” “love yourself again,” or “discover your purpose in life.” You simply can’t build a peaceful life on top of a self that isn’t actually yours.
Inside this book, you’ll learn how to:Recognize the hidden conditioning behind feeling lost in life and not knowing who you really are.
Identify the role-based patterns fueling your anxiety, overthinking, emotional exhaustion, and resentment.
Break cycles of self-sabotage and negative thinking without forcing yourself into toxic positivity.
Heal emotional trauma, including toxic childhood conditioning, through nervous-system based practices that work in real life.
Use the Fingertips Principle to stop trying to control what was never yours to manage.
Run Non-Compliance Experiments that retrain your nervous system to feel safe when you stop over-giving and start choosing yourself.
Untangle your sense of purpose from expectations, guilt, or external validation.
Feel emotions without feeding them or turning them into spirals of overthinking and fear.
And for the first time, this edition includes a new and urgent topic: The Social Media Self — how comparison, unrealistic standards, curated “perfect lives,” and constant performance pressure distort your identity and steal your peace. Learn how to reset the part of you that feels behind, invisible, or never enough.
This book is not another mindset hack, manifestation trick, or habit-building routine. It’s a practical, grounded, psychologically-informed method for stepping out of the identity you were conditioned into, and returning to the person underneath.
Perfect for Readers Who Feel:“I feel lost in life and don’t know who I am anymore.”
“I want to find myself again after years of overthinking, people-pleasing, or burnout.”
“I want to heal emotional trauma, anxiety, or self-doubt without endlessly reliving the past.”
“I want inner peace, but I don’t know how to get there.”
“I’m tired of performing. I want to feel real again.”
The Reset Self is a guide for anyone ready to stop performing a life they never chose, and finally live the one that is actually theirs.
If you’re exhausted from healing, striving, or trying to be “enough,” this book will show you the way home to yourself.
Explore The Dark Unconscious
Your Story Told by Another is a story in which readers follow a foundling through the mistakes of his childhood and the moral challenges of adulthood and are challenged to see themselves in the narrator. What was the inspiration behind this book?
To share my understanding that each of us achieve our full potential by making our lives purposeful and that this enterprise isn’t a straight line but rather a programmed series of adventures or misadventures that are meant not to discourage but to add to the thrill of this journey called life.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Each conscious challenge is an opportunity to explore the dark unconscious. Scriptures and philosophies are best used as tools to explore this unconscious. Once the infinite creativity of the unconscious is matched with the unlimited vocabulary of the Qur’an, anyone may articulate new horizons.
Did you learn anything about yourself as you planned, wrote, and revised this book?
As I sketched the book’s plot, I realized that I myself was a sketch drawn by a Sender and colored by others. As I wrote it, I learned that though made and colored by others, it was yet up to me to detail and add the finishing touches. As I revised, I concluded that inspiration never ends, and that each chapter of life must be built upon to explore the next.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Your Story Told by Another?
Life is a series of locked doors. If they learn to match their infinite creativity with an unlimited vocabulary, they will discover a golden key that will be unique to that moment and will unlock the door ahead to amazing possibilities.
Author Links: Website | Facebook | Instagram | GoodReads | Amazon
Exploring uncharted territory around you is uncomfortable, charting what is within can be outright painful. So, this adventure is neither for the faint hearted nor the timid. There are many places in your life that you would rather not visit, many low-lying marshes that are too embarrassing to share with another, many heights that you have crossed off to your imagination. Yes, the path of this story will take you to those forbidden lands, not to perish, but to make it there and back.
No exploration is complete without its hidden treasure. And yes, you will find many golden keys to unlock treasures untouched by those before you.
Perhaps, this exploration, with a change of settings, is your own story, told through another. It beseeches you to be honest with yourself—even if you can’t share your secret missteps. For like Jacob, you too can be more than a survivor. You may find within you the power to change your world!
The Wind Blows Sometimes Gently or Wildly
Away from the City follows the journey of a maple leaf, leaving the noise behind and finding calm in the wild, made even more moving by your real-life reflections on family, travel, and nature as comfort during ALS. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
There are so many inspirations for the story, and none of them are specific to any one order. Fall is my favorite season of the year, especially when it has just started. The green is still very present, but yellow and orange decide they want to be a part of the aesthetics. The wind blows sometimes gently or wildly, while that swoosh sound is all you hear. It’s peaceful. When I was younger, we would often go wood hauling to prepare for the Winter season. My mother grew up in the Chuska Mountains, and my dad grew up near Gallup, NM, where the Cibola National Forest and the Zuni Mountains are accessible. My family lived near large hills, so my sisters and I were always up in them for hours. My parents always took my sisters and me on nature drives, so some of my best memories are from those trips. If we stayed at home, we planted or gardened, but we were always outside, and there was nothing better. As my parents grew older, our trips lessened, but I ended up working in Yellowstone National Park for five seasons as a younger woman. It was the absolute best experience of my life. Later in life, my mom was diagnosed with ALS, which was very frightening for my family. Even at her weakest, my mom loved nature until the very end, even when all she could do sometimes was look out the window. There was comfort in knowing that nature still brought her inner joy.
How did you decide which “stops” the leaf would make, and did any scenes get cut along the way?
I have loved writing poetry for many years. I have many poems that no one has read before. I wrote “Away from the City” about a beautiful leaf envisioned. I have seen some beautiful waterfalls while living in Yellowstone National Park, and I have seen just beautiful scenery from where both my parents grew up. I used those memories as a stop for the leaf to visit because they are magical. Because the story started off as a poem, thankfully, I didn’t cut any scenes.
The artwork balances peaceful melancholy with warmth and light. What visual choices were most important to you in showing that seasonal transition?
I envisioned all the colors of early fall. It’s so vibrant. The colors are prominent and pop. The green looks greener, and the leaves are in transition from green to yellow, orange, and brown. It’s just beautiful how that happens. The Earth lets you know it’s alive, and it changes just like people do. The sky has this wonderful way of somehow matching the fall hue. As for the photos in the book, my agent, Amanda Zillman, thought it would be a unique touch to add photos. She added beautiful notes to each of my photos, clarifying some of the memories that inspired my first story.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I am a Native American from the Navajo tribe. My next children’s book is a hommage to my cultural roots. It’s called “The Hogan that Cheii Built.” I have many stories to share, and I hope the readers will love them.
Author Links: Amazon | Website
Away from the City is a short melodic story about appreciating Autumn’s vibrant colors in the fall season while giving credit to nature’s beauty.
Spreading Their Wings
Runaway Artist follows a young artist who witnesses a violent crime behind a Beverly Hills gallery where she is interning, and her sketches become the only evidence, putting her own life in danger. What inspired the idea of an artist who can reconstruct a crime scene through drawings?
The experts say, “write what you know.” Because I’ve been a professional artist for over 40 years, the subject made perfect sense to tackle. Brooke reacts to stimuli the way I might if faced with her predicament, and if I were her age. We artists see the world in color and details.
Brooke is both brave and uncertain at times. How did you approach writing her emotional journey?
I love writing about females in their early twenties who are on the cusp of spreading their wings. Brooke is old enough to know a lot, but young enough to make mistakes. And the average reader has been there at one point in their life, so they can relate…and, hopefully, even cheer on the heroine.
The book touches on courage, independence, and trusting your instincts. Were those themes intentional from the beginning?
Yes, totally intentional. I treated Brooke as if she’d just joined the military by pulling her away from the life she had previously known, then throwing her into a place far from her comfort zone. She would either fold up into a ball or have to dig deep to find that inner confidence we all need if we are to survive. Fortunately, she has a sister who is strong and capable, so she has an example to follow.
Could you imagine returning to Wildridge or these characters in future stories?
Possibly. I really like the setting, which is patterned after a mountain community near me. I can imagine Brooke and Conner marrying and eventually enjoying their HEA, but prior to that, I’d have to invent a villain. Brooke might even become a police sketch artist and… Who knows?
Author Links: GoodReads | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Days later, clues finally emerge, turning the alleged murder into a reality. Brooke must face a decision—risk the killer returning to silence her…or disappear into thin air. Can she remain hidden until an arrest is made? Or will evil find her first?
Spunky Spirit
Kali the Elephant Learns from Socrates the Philosopher follows a young elephant being teased at school who wishes she could change how she looks, until she meets a philosopher who helps her change her perspective. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration was hearing about my granddaughter and other kids getting teased, and being unhappy about the usual responses recommended in children’s books, as well as in real life. I wanted to show kids that they could stand up for themselves and use humor to get the teasers to back off. They didn’t need to take revenge or wait for adults to do something about it. And then I remembered how Socrates used humor to respond to his teasers and win a beauty contest! So that gave me a chance to introduce Socrates to my readers, and imagine how Kali would respond to her teasers.
What makes Kali relatable for children facing teasing or insecurity?
Children will be attracted to her spunky spirit and be inspired by the fact that she manages to solve her problem with good humor, win her classmates’ admiration, and thus solidify her friendship with them.
How did working with illustrator Ady Branzei shape the final book, and how important are illustrations in conveying emotional nuance in a story like this?
Ady Branzei’s illustrations do a marvelous job of conveying Kali’s varying states of mind: her eagerness to go to school, her feelings of hurt when her friends tease her, her decision to take matters into her own hands and “shrink” her features, and failing that, her decision to follow Socrates’ lead and prove to her friends how lucky she is to have the features she does.
Do you plan to explore more philosophy-inspired children’s stories?
Yes, I have already started exploring an idea based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Kali the Elephant | Website | Amazon
Kali the Elephant is hurt when her elementary-school friends make fun of her big ears, long trunk, and too-big-for-an-elephant eyes. She tries everything to shrink her features, but sadly, nothing works. She then turns to her comic books and discovers that the ancient philosopher Socrates was also teased for his appearance. How did he respond to his friends? With a twinkle in his eye, Socrates used humor to turn the teasing around. Inspired by his wisdom, Kali finds the perfect words to reply to her friends, a reply that leaves everyone laughing and wishing they looked like her!
This beautifully illustrated picture book seamlessly weaves a classic philosophical story into a modern, relatable tale for children ages 3-8. It gently tackles themes of:
* Dealing with teasing and bullying
* Building self-esteem and resilience
* Using humor and emotional intelligence to solve problems
* Celebrating what makes you unique.
“Kali the Elephant Learns from Socrates the Philosopher” is more than just a story, it’s a conversation starter for parents and teachers about friendship, kindness, and critical thinking. It has received multiple 5-star editorial and customer reviews and is perfect for fans of books by Janna Levin and Kobi Yamada. Grab your copy today and join Kali on her journey of self-discovery!
Clarity
In Writing in the Wound, you share with readers what it means to be shaped by academia, gendered power, and migration, and how your reliance on music proved to be a method of rescue. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I began writing Writing in the Wound at a moment of profound emotional and political intensity in my life. After years of navigating the Canadian immigration system, I found myself confronting not only institutional barriers but also the deeper psychological and embodied impact of living within them.
Initially, I considered writing a more overtly critical, policy-driven book—one that directly addressed the failures and frustrations of the immigration system. But I realized that such a project would take me away from my core as an artist.
What felt more urgent was to write from within my own lived experience—through sound, memory, and relationship. This book became a way of tracing how I endured, and what allowed me to stay. In that sense, it is not only a story of struggle, but of artistic becoming.
In its early drafts, the manuscript was expansive and uncontained. Over time, it found its center—particularly through my relationship with my mentor, which offered a space of care, listening, and growth. That relational grounding became essential to shaping the narrative.
Ultimately, this book created a new path for me—a path where I was no longer masking who I am or what I am enduring within this system. It allowed me to situate myself clearly as an artist, while also naming the conditions I was navigating.
I wrote this book not just to document what happened, but to understand how one continues to create, even within systems that constrain and wound.
Music appears as discipline, refuge, and language—when did it become central to your survival?
Music became central to my survival during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 period. After serving as Music Faculty for Semester at Sea, I travelled to Karachi due to the pandemic and found myself unexpectedly unable to return to Canada for nearly two years, at a time when institutions were largely closed and opportunities had disappeared.
In that period of precarity, when academic institutions had stopped hiring faculty, and it was difficult to teach remotely from where I was situated, music shifted from being a practice of expression to a practice of sustenance. Earlier compositions, like Anticipating and Living with Purpose, had received recognition on international charts and in competitions, which gave me the confidence to continue applying for opportunities. Then, Perils of Heavy Rainfall received Second Prize in Listening during COVID contest (2020).
Gradually, commissions and invitations followed, including from organizations such as New Music Edmonton and New Music Calgary, as well as from the International Women’s Day festival and the Canadian Music Week platform. What began as a fragile thread of continuity became, over time, a means of survival—both materially and emotionally.
Was there a moment when you felt your voice shifting—from survival to assertion?
Yes—there was a moment when everything I had been experiencing condensed into a single, clear sentence: that after 17 years in Canada, I still did not have permanent residency, and that this was not incidental, but tied to the structural limitations of the immigration system.
This clarity came to me in July, during a later stage of working on Writing in the Wound. By that point, the writing had begun to settle, and I was able to see my experience not only as something I had lived through but as something I could name with precision.
Being able to name that so directly marked a shift for me. Until then, much of my writing had been about processing and surviving. But that sentence became a position—it allowed me to see my experience not as an individual struggle, but as part of a broader systemic pattern.
Around that time, I also began to explore new pathways within the immigration system, including applying on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. That process required me to articulate my story not only as narrative, but as a formal claim—something that could be recognized within institutional frameworks. In that sense, my voice was no longer only expressive; it became strategic and assertive.
This shift was also reflected in how my work moved into public space. My writing on the undervaluation of artistic labour was published in Canadian Dimension, and I began sharing my story in community settings, including an event with Action Dignity. Speaking in those spaces—where these issues are often not centered—felt like an important act of bringing lived experience into public discourse.
That momentum continued with invitations to speak at larger gatherings, including a Labour Day event, where my story was witnessed by a wide network of community organizations.
In that sense, assertion was not a single moment, but a series of acts—each one moving my voice from private endurance toward public articulation and advocacy.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Writing in the Wound?
At its heart, the book asks: what happens when our scars begin to speak?
I hope readers come away with a deeper recognition that the wound is not only personal, but structural. Experiences of migration, racialization, and institutional struggle are not simply endured—they also carry strength, insight, and endurance. They shape ways of seeing, feeling, and creating that are often overlooked or undervalued.
For those navigating migration and racialization, these experiences are frequently internalized, fragmented, or rendered invisible. This book is an attempt to give them form—to show that what is carried in the body and in memory can become voice.
If there is one thing I hope readers take away, it is that these experiences are not only sites of injury, but also sites of knowledge. When scars begin to speak, they do more than tell a story—they begin to name the structures that produced them, and in doing so, open the possibility of shifting those systems—and one’s positionality within them.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
For Dr. Shumaila Hemani, music began as a calling. It unfolded into a life path through a rare human connection with eminent ethnomusicologist Professor Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, whose faith in her awakened the courage to risk everything for the artist’s path.
Spanning nearly two decades — from 2006 to the present — across the academic corridors of Harvard and the University of Alberta to the soundscapes of London, Boston, Chicago, Edmonton, Mumbai, Karachi, Calgary, Banff, and Toronto, and a world odyssey aboard a floating campus, Writing in the Wound is a story of resilience and fragile belonging, of visibility and erasure, and of the power of art — in particular Sufi music — to transmute pain into wisdom.
It is an intimate testament to truth and vulnerability in the face of institutional silencing, immigration precarity, and the long endurance toward permanent belonging.
Friend to Humanity
Arboreal Destiny: The Trees That Shaped the History and Culture of People takes twenty kinds of trees, from figs and olives to oaks, chestnuts, and rubber, and shows how they have steered human history, belief, trade, and even medicine. What first inspired you to explore history through trees?
I realized how little I knew about different trees. Research was a way for me to learn more about different tree species.
You suggest trees are central, not peripheral, to human history. When did that realization click for you?
As I learned more about trees, it became clear that trees played a far more important role in human history than I could have imagined.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
I wanted to show the complexity of the ways trees were viewed and utilized, from a religious object to a source of tools to the material to build boats and buildings to a source of nourishment. Trees offered all of these, among many other contributions to human society.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Arboreal Destiny?
Trees are a crucial resource and friend to humanity. We need them to prosper not just in the past days, but now and in the future.
Author Links: Website | Amazon
The book perches on the branches of 20 trees to explore the paramount role of trees across nations and continents. It goes on to show how trees remain crucial even in this age of computers, steel and glass and will be even more important in humanity’s future.
Peace Is Not An Abstract Idea
The Peace Guidebook is a warm, structured, story-driven roadmap that turns peace from an abstract ideal into ten practical principles and small, repeatable daily actions for personal and collective change. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Peace is something people talk about often, but very few people are taught how to actually practice it in everyday life. That realization became the heart of The Peace Guidebook. My co-author Dr. Katie Eastman and I wanted to create something practical, compassionate, and real. As we often say, peace is not an abstract idea or a distant dream. It is a daily practice, built through small, intentional actions that begin within each of us and ripple outward to change the world. Instead of presenting peace as a distant ideal, we designed ten principles that people can apply in ordinary moments, during conflict, stress, relationships, and personal challenges. The world feels very divided and overwhelmed right now, and we felt strongly that people needed a guide that could help them return to hope, healing, and harmony in a grounded way.
When you were shaping Hope, Healing, and Harmony, what did you most want readers to feel by the end of each section, and how did that influence which principles went where?
When shaping the book into the three sections of Hope, Healing, and Harmony, we thought carefully about the emotional journey many people experience when they are searching for peace. The first section, Hope, helps readers remember that peace is possible. Many people arrive feeling overwhelmed or discouraged, so the early principles focus on presence, potential, and patience to gently reconnect them with possibility. Healing is the deeper inner work, where readers begin practicing compassion, responsibility, and personal growth through principles like practice, passion, and purpose. By the time readers reach Harmony, our goal is for them to feel empowered to live their peace outwardly. That is where positivity, perseverance, partnership, and peace come together as a way of showing up in the world with intention and care.
If a reader only has five minutes a day, which exercise or “Peace Point” do you think creates the biggest ripple effect and why?
One of the most powerful practices we share in the book is simply pausing and asking yourself, “What would peace look like in this moment?” That small question can interrupt reactive patterns and invite a more thoughtful response. It takes only a few minutes, but it shifts awareness immediately. Instead of reacting from frustration, fear, or habit, people begin responding from clarity and compassion. Over time, that one simple pause can transform conversations, relationships, and decisions. The ripple effect is powerful because peace is not something we reach once and keep forever. It is something we practice again and again in the small moments of daily life.
The book connects to the Percolate Peace Project as a larger movement. What’s one concrete way you hope readers will carry their inner shifts into their communities without burning out?
One of the most important ideas behind the Percolate Peace Project is that peace spreads through small, sustainable actions rather than large, exhausting efforts. I encourage readers to start with one simple practice such as logging a moment of peace or performing a small act of kindness each day. That might mean listening more deeply to someone, expressing gratitude, helping a neighbor, or offering encouragement. When people focus on one meaningful action at a time, peace becomes energizing instead of overwhelming. The goal is not perfection or constant effort. The goal is consistency. Small moments practiced daily create a ripple that moves naturally into families, workplaces, and communities.
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