By: Alexandra Kinias Caption: A Child Bride In Afghanistan.  By:  Stephanie Sinclair,winner of UNICEF photo of the year 2007 While most eight years old girls go to bed dreaming of doll houses, ballet classes, crayons and scrapbooks, princesses in sequence dresses and tiaras, nightmares keep others awake in fear that the sunlight of the new day will rob them of their childhood; in one of the most heinous crimes that are still committed to humanity: Underage Marriages.  Unfortunately in regions where it is practiced,  communities keep a blind eye on these illegal marriages, which in reality legalize pedophilia, prostitution, rape … Continue reading My Deep Condolences For Your Daughter’s Wedding

Editorial by Alexandra Kinias 1. LAOS: One Woman’s Mission to Free Laos From Millions of Unexploded Bombs Thanks to Lao-American Channapha Khamvong’s efforts, the United States will be spending $12 million to get rid of millions of unexploded ordnance in Laos, up from $2.5 million ten years ago. From her little office in Washington D.C., Khamvongsa has been able to raise money and awareness about the contaminated country. Laos is littered with live, hidden cluster bombs from 580,000 American bombing missions half a century ago. They are forgotten leftovers from “the Secret War,” one of the most severe air campaigns … Continue reading Women Around the World this Week ..

— Editorial by: Alexandra Kinias ……….. Egypt: Egypt honors mother who dressed as man for 43 years to provide for family Left as a widow with no income, while still pregnant with her daughter, Sisa Abu Daooh had to join the workforce to provide for her little family. Restricted by the traditions of her village in the southern governorate of Luxor that opposed to the work of women, Daooh was left with no other choice, but to disguise as a man to be able to find a job, a role she mastered for more than four decades. She wore men’s … Continue reading Weekly Women News from Around the World

— By: Alexandra Kinias — I stand in solidarity with the victims of Charlie Hebdo and the officer who lost his life defending them, not particularly because I agree with the contents of the magazine, but because I stand for the freedom of expression. I never read the magazine and I haven’t seen its cartoons prior or post the heinous massacre that took the life of its staff. The terrorists shouted Islamic slogans as they shot their victims in cold blood, and witnesses heard them saying that they have avenged for the Prophet who was the subject of the magazine’s … Continue reading This is Why I am Charlie …..

 While I was organizing my computer files, I came across this article that I had written in 2011 for the Arizona Authors Association and where I had talked about the adjustments I had made in  my writing career. Black Tulips from  Screenplay to Novel (original article) “The decision to adapt one of my screenplays to a novel was as unpredictable as the characters I create. Novels are usually adapted to screenplays not the other way around. I had already gone through a mid-course adjustment when I dumped my engineering career and picked up screenplay writing. The culmination of the classes … Continue reading Black Tulips from Screenplay to Novel