Compassion. Drive. Sacrifice.

If I had to boil down my values down to just three things, it would be those. They are integral to who I am and therefore permeate everything I do.

I immigrated to the United States from Russia with my family in 1994 with refugee status, to flee persecution. I was born during the last years of the Soviet Socialist Republic and its fall had greatly impacted my family.

I remember hearing stories of my grandmother, Tamara Starobina, PhD (my literal hero) leaving everything to come here. Back in Russia, she was a nuclear chemist, holding various important titles. When she came to the USA, she had to start from the bottom again. She filled up drinks at K&W Cafeteria, keeping her head down and not telling a soul about the work she did prior to coming here. To her it was beside the point, because everything at that point was about survival. She would work quietly until the right opportunity arose.

I remember feeling that profound sense of duty, that many immigrant children feel. I had to make my journey count. My family’s sacrifice reverberates in my heart to this day.

In high school and college, I developed an interest in psychology — specifically how art and psychology could merge to bring insight and healing. Professionally, my focus became facilitating mental health and expressive arts interventions for refugee children and folks with various mental health issues. I later went on to get my Masters in Social Work and now work in private practice, specializing in trauma disorders.

I love incorporating expressive arts into my therapy work and psychological elements into my writing. I especially enjoy when fiction and reality blur, so that the reader finds themselves asking, "could this be possible?" Naturally, I gravitated to scifi/speculative fiction and began writing my first novel, "Mirrors," in 2015.

I have published several works in poetry and speculative fiction since then.

Most recent projects include screenplays “Divide Theory” and “Desert Rose” written in collaboration with Husani S. Oakley.

I am interested in creative collaboration and am happy to offer my professional editing and critique services for writing projects!