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The guns in Aleppo have fallen silent. At some point, the war of bombs and bullets and the interior war of one ideology against another will come to an end and Syrians of all stripes will look to their common heritage to rebuild their society.

Aleppo may be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Its ancient Citadel, covered market, and Umayyad mosque are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

In this "children's book for adults," a long time resident of Aleppo takes a tour of the old quarter and provides historical sketches and photos for those who value what was lost and are eager to see the treasures of Aleppo rebuilt and a vigorous civil society restored.

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In Biblical Time Out of Mind, two revisionist thinkers expose what they argue are the tenuous underpinnings of these claims. Was the Exodus of scripture actually a Hebrew exodus. Was the Moses depicted by Charlton Heston actually a Hebrew leader? Or were they echoes of a much earlier exodus of Hyksos, the invasive people to first conquer and reign over Egyptians?

The authors argue that neither Moses nor the Hebrews were in Egypt until around 1000 BCE--500 years after the earlier Exodus is known to have taken place. They go on to sift through research of an Hyksos evacuation of Egypt led by an Eastern leader who is far different than the Moses with whom we are familiar.

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The American government wants to establish a stripped-down diplomatic post in the Equateur, the remotest part of the strife-torn Congo. No diplomatic protections. Not even diplomatic communication links. Officers assigned to staff it refuse to go. They won't serve in that "hellhole."

Enter Fred Hunter, a young US Information Service officer just arrived from training in Belgium. Why not send him? Sink or swim. Let's see if he'll survive.

So Fred goes alone into the Equateur, a typewriter his only friend. Quoting liberally from letters written on that typewriter, this memoir recounts the adventures of Fred's year at the edge of the jungle.

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The Plain Of Dead Cities makes sense of this complex scenario, by delving deep into the wells of Syrian history and examining the vital role that Syria has played in human development over the past 5000 years. Using a unique approach The Plain Of Dead Cities takes the reader of a virtual tour of Syria. The narrator carries you across the country, through the history books and archaeological sites, revealing the political, religious, social, geographical and historical complexities that have led to the current military conflagration.

The Plain Of Dead Cities is as unconventional as the land it describes, part non-fictional memoir and part fiction. The Plain Of Dead Cities is an adventure and a tale, but above all is a tribute to Syria, that most mystical of lands.

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[available in Spring 2019]

Refugees who have fled famine and violence and resettled in the US too often are isolated, disconnected, living in despair. They typically have housing, food, clothing. Yet they miss the large inter-connected families, the all-embracing social fabric, the living culture in which they were raised.

This book tells the unknown story of ordinary Americans who saw a need, created an ingenious solution, worked hard, asked nothing in return­­—and found that their own lives were uplifted.

Patricia Martin Holt has written a book about “fabric” . . . the fabric of lives in warm, welcoming communities as well as the complex cross-stitched fabrics that she first encountered in Jordan in 1982. When her husband was posted to Amman Jordan, Patricia met a Renaissance woman named Leila Wahbeh and followed her to the local refugee camps. Here, Patricia found women who were creating textiles with intricate designs­—and restoring themselves and their families in the process.

Years later in the Atlanta suburbs, Patricia discovered the Peace of Thread movement, which was founded in 2003 by another Renaissance woman—Denise Smith. Here too, Patricia saw that refugee women working with fabric, selling their creations in posh stores and on Esty, were overcoming their isolation, strengthening their families, making some money, and embuing their lives with purpose.

Patricia realized that we can work for world peace without grand gestures, photo ops, or foreign travel. All that is needed is to lend a hand to those in need who live in the same cities and counties where we live.

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Musa Al-Halool is a native of the Syrian city of Raqqa, located on the Euphrates River in the Syrian desert and a few years ago claimed by the Islamic State as the center of their so-called caliphate. Now, the city is ruined, the Islamic state has fled, and Syrians like our author whose family homes have been destroyed are giving thought to the biting ironies of life as they pursue their careers in exile.

Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the frying pan of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the fire of war, suffering, and mass murder . . . he presents them as the response of one still-sane voice in the midst of madness.

The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled "Ratstan" . . . or the country of "rats." These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.

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Musa Al-Halool is a native of the Syrian city of Raqqa, located on the Euphrates River in the Syrian desert and a few years ago claimed by the Islamic State as the center of their so-called caliphate. Now, the city is ruined, the Islamic state has fled, and Syrians like our author whose family homes have been destroyed are giving thought to the biting ironies of life as they pursue their careers in exile.

Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the frying pan of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the fire of war, suffering, and mass murder . . . he presents them as the response of one still-sane voice in the midst of madness.

The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled "Ratstan" . . . or the country of "rats." These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.

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Musa Al-Halool is a native of the Syrian city of Raqqa, located on the Euphrates River in the Syrian desert and a few years ago claimed by the Islamic State as the center of their so-called caliphate. Now, the city is ruined, the Islamic state has fled, and Syrians like our author whose family homes have been destroyed are giving thought to the biting ironies of life as they pursue their careers in exile.

Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the frying pan of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the fire of war, suffering, and mass murder . . . he presents them as the response of one still-sane voice in the midst of madness.

The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled "Ratstan" . . . or the country of "rats." These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.

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Twenty-five paintings by Helen Zughaib accompanied by text based on favorite stories told by her father about life in Syria and Lebanon in the 1930s and during World War II.
 
Helen's father was born in the Old Quarter of Damascus during Ottoman times, when Le Grande Syrie included the lands that are now demarked  as Syria and Lebanon. His father and mother, first cousins in an arranged marriage, were from the villages of Zahle and Durer Shweir in the Lebanese mountains, first cousins in an arranged marriage.

"Let me tell you a story," Helen Zughaib's father used to say. What followed were absorbing tales of her father's childhood in Damascus, village life in Lebanon in the late 1930s, amusing relatives, happenings the traditions of in their local Greek Orthodox Church, and major events in her father's young life that lead him to emigrate to the United States in 1946.

Helen Zughaib is an award-winning artist who has developed a distinctive technique working in gouache and ink. She was born in Beirut and , educated in the Middle East, Paris, and the US. She is currently based in Washington.

Zughaib uses folkloric elements and a wide variety of other visual references to express the life and outlook of her family, the village community of her father's young adult life, and her position as an international woman with special insight and empathy for the Middle East and its people.

Critics note the parallels between Zughaib's work as an artist with Arab roots to the art of contemporary "Native, Latin, and African American communities." (Maymanah Farhat)
 
For More:
Cultural Understanding in the Art of Helen Zughaib (by Maymanah Farhat) 
www.onefineart.com/articles/helen-zughaib

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Cradle of Intrigue uses postwar Syria as a focal point to tell the story of how Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan made Syria their target of conspiratorial plots as they sought to gain influence over Damascus. The book’s narrative challenges the notion of an omnipresent CIA and MI6, giving agency to local actors’ decisions to unseat governments and guide their own foreign policies.

(Available as a Kindle eBook only.)

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Cradle of Intrigue uses postwar Syria as a focal point to tell the story of how Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan made Syria their target of conspiratorial plots as they sought to gain influence over Damascus. The book’s narrative challenges the notion of an omnipresent CIA and MI6, giving agency to local actors’ decisions to unseat governments and guide their own foreign policies.

(Available as a Kindle eBook only.)

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"Steven Schlesser and his sisters lead a privileged childhood in Portland, Oregon financed by their father's business. Dad had developed an innovative way to provide pre-painted material for use in building the cheapest and most-reviled form of housing in the US, immortalized in plaintive country western tunes and brought before the public in Bill Clinton's most sleazy love affairs. We are talking about trailers also known as mobile homes. (The industry preferred the term "manufactured housing.") 

After World War II, decent folk took jobs with big corporations that enabled them to qualify for FHA mortgages. They moved into freshly painted two bedroom houses in the suburbs. What about the other half? Seasonal workers, traveling salesmen, low paid factory staff, mothers without a breadwinner, drunks, druggies, failed criminals, perverts--all kinds of losers, outcasts, and hard luck cases moved into urban slums and into even less expensive and less stable neighborhoods: trailer park encampments at the edge of town.

Steven Schlesser and his two sisters grew up in a good neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. As children, they had two loving parents and never worried about money. Brimming with confidence after graduating from college and law school, Steve joined his father's firm. The two created a juggernaut." 

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Fred Hunter arrives in the Congo in 1963, three years after its chaotic independence. He expects heat, jungle, hardship, even violence. Instead he finds the Kivu, a kind of paradise. It lay nestled among Rift Valley lakes. The climate was benign, the beauty extraordinary. It was peaceful, people got along, and an African king lived atop the nearby mountains.

Enchanted, his senses alert, he writes about the people and his adventures: the Congolese employee, a womanizing rogue, with whom he travels; a Foreign Service family with whom he lodges; an American academic intoxicated by Africa; a lady missionary lost in time; a visit to that African king; mud-trapped, hippos-surrounded, in a deserted game park at nightfall; a Kivu girl with whom he falls in love.

The memoir takes you along on these Kivu adventures. It offers glimpses of an Africa that circumstance and conflict keep alive only in memory and memoir.

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Cradle of Intrigue uses postwar Syria as a focal point to tell the story of how Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan made Syria their target of conspiratorial plots as they sought to gain influence over Damascus. The book’s narrative challenges the notion of an omnipresent CIA and MI6, giving agency to local actors’ decisions to unseat governments and guide their own foreign policies.

(Available as a Kindle eBook only.)

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In recent years, there has been a strong movement in Latin America for governments to regulate working conditions of child labor. On July 2, 2014, Bolivia passed legislation to allow children to work as young as age 10. This action put Bolivia in violation of the UN Conventions regulating child labor and was strongly condemned by human rights advocacy groups.

“In Child Labor – Legalize? Or Outlaw?” The author describes the child labor movement in Latin America and points out the challenge that many children have to work illegally to survive. They do not have the luxury of waiting for a “perfect” solution.

Although regulations on the working conditions of child labor can protect child workers by law, it is not an effective solution on the ground.

A better policy will be to protect the child workers legally while also providing a “collaborative approach.” The author explores this alternative in her book. 

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Musa Al-Halool is a native of the Syrian city of Raqqa, located on the Euphrates River in the Syrian desert and a few years ago claimed by the Islamic State as the center of their so-called caliphate. Now, the city is ruined, the Islamic state has fled, and Syrians like our author whose family homes have been destroyed are giving thought to the biting ironies of life as they pursue their careers in exile.

Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the frying pan of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the fire of war, suffering, and mass murder . . . he presents them as the response of one still-sane voice in the midst of madness.

The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled "Ratstan" . . . or the country of "rats." These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.

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[available in Spring 2019]

Refugees who have fled famine and violence and resettled in the US too often are isolated, disconnected, living in despair. They typically have housing, food, clothing. Yet they miss the large inter-connected families, the all-embracing social fabric, the living culture in which they were raised.

This book tells the unknown story of ordinary Americans who saw a need, created an ingenious solution, worked hard, asked nothing in return­­—and found that their own lives were uplifted.

Patricia Martin Holt has written a book about “fabric” . . . the fabric of lives in warm, welcoming communities as well as the complex cross-stitched fabrics that she first encountered in Jordan in 1982. When her husband was posted to Amman Jordan, Patricia met a Renaissance woman named Leila Wahbeh and followed her to the local refugee camps. Here, Patricia found women who were creating textiles with intricate designs­—and restoring themselves and their families in the process.

Years later in the Atlanta suburbs, Patricia discovered the Peace of Thread movement, which was founded in 2003 by another Renaissance woman—Denise Smith. Here too, Patricia saw that refugee women working with fabric, selling their creations in posh stores and on Esty, were overcoming their isolation, strengthening their families, making some money, and embuing their lives with purpose.

Patricia realized that we can work for world peace without grand gestures, photo ops, or foreign travel. All that is needed is to lend a hand to those in need who live in the same cities and counties where we live.

Splash Page | Author | Kindle

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In recent years, there has been a strong movement in Latin America for governments to regulate working conditions of child labor. On July 2, 2014, Bolivia passed legislation to allow children to work as young as age 10. This action put Bolivia in violation of the UN Conventions regulating child labor and was strongly condemned by human rights advocacy groups.

“In Child Labor – Legalize? Or Outlaw?” The author describes the child labor movement in Latin America and points out the challenge that many children have to work illegally to survive. They do not have the luxury of waiting for a “perfect” solution.

Although regulations on the working conditions of child labor can protect child workers by law, it is not an effective solution on the ground.

A better policy will be to protect the child workers legally while also providing a “collaborative approach.” The author explores this alternative in her book. 

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Refugees from Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa find themselves isolated after resettling in the US. Used to village culture, they are adrift. "Empower a Refugee" tells the stories of refugees who participated in the Peace of Thread program near Atlanta, GA. Run by compassionate Christians who have found their calling in helping the dispossessed, Peace of Thread involves refugee women in fabric-related craft work.

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[available in Spring 2019]

Refugees who have fled famine and violence and resettled in the US too often are isolated, disconnected, living in despair. They typically have housing, food, clothing. Yet they miss the large inter-connected families, the all-embracing social fabric, the living culture in which they were raised.

This book tells the unknown story of ordinary Americans who saw a need, created an ingenious solution, worked hard, asked nothing in return­­—and found that their own lives were uplifted.

Patricia Martin Holt has written a book about “fabric” . . . the fabric of lives in warm, welcoming communities as well as the complex cross-stitched fabrics that she first encountered in Jordan in 1982. When her husband was posted to Amman Jordan, Patricia met a Renaissance woman named Leila Wahbeh and followed her to the local refugee camps. Here, Patricia found women who were creating textiles with intricate designs­—and restoring themselves and their families in the process.

Years later in the Atlanta suburbs, Patricia discovered the Peace of Thread movement, which was founded in 2003 by another Renaissance woman—Denise Smith. Here too, Patricia saw that refugee women working with fabric, selling their creations in posh stores and on Esty, were overcoming their isolation, strengthening their families, making some money, and embuing their lives with purpose.

Patricia realized that we can work for world peace without grand gestures, photo ops, or foreign travel. All that is needed is to lend a hand to those in need who live in the same cities and counties where we live.

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Musa Al-Halool is a native of the Syrian city of Raqqa, located on the Euphrates River in the Syrian desert and a few years ago claimed by the Islamic State as the center of their so-called caliphate. Now, the city is ruined, the Islamic state has fled, and Syrians like our author whose family homes have been destroyed are giving thought to the biting ironies of life as they pursue their careers in exile.

Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the frying pan of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the fire of war, suffering, and mass murder . . . he presents them as the response of one still-sane voice in the midst of madness.

The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled "Ratstan" . . . or the country of "rats." These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.

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White Carnations is a collection of 101 very short tales that capture the unfolding Syrian tragedy. It is one writer’s plea in the face of horrific suffering of individuals from all walks of Syrian life. These Kafkaesque tales briefly sketch the nasty turns of fate of individuals trapped at home, subjected to the whimsical atrocities committed by pro-Assad, paramilitary hooligans against helpless, innocent civilians, or forced to flee the war-torn country. (Very short fiction based on fact by a noted Syrian author.)

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Musa Al-Halool is a native of the Syrian city of Raqqa, located on the Euphrates River in the Syrian desert and a few years ago claimed by the Islamic State as the center of their so-called caliphate. Now, the city is ruined, the Islamic state has fled, and Syrians like our author whose family homes have been destroyed are giving thought to the biting ironies of life as they pursue their careers in exile.

Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the frying pan of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the fire of war, suffering, and mass murder . . . he presents them as the response of one still-sane voice in the midst of madness.

The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled "Ratstan" . . . or the country of "rats." These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.

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In recent years, there has been a strong movement in Latin America for governments to regulate working conditions of child labor. On July 2, 2014, Bolivia passed legislation to allow children to work as young as age 10. This action put Bolivia in violation of the UN Conventions regulating child labor and was strongly condemned by human rights advocacy groups.

“In Child Labor – Legalize? Or Outlaw?” The author describes the child labor movement in Latin America and points out the challenge that many children have to work illegally to survive. They do not have the luxury of waiting for a “perfect” solution.

Although regulations on the working conditions of child labor can protect child workers by law, it is not an effective solution on the ground.

A better policy will be to protect the child workers legally while also providing a “collaborative approach.” The author explores this alternative in her book. 

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