"Born after the Islamic Revolution of Iran; a war my parents escaped. My life began as an immigrant in Sweden. A country that graciously accepted refugees of war. While we had managed to escape the persecution, we were met with discrimination in a country where some of its citizens saw immigrants as a threat. So my childhood was a melange of freedom and fear.

My parents worked incessantly in order to make ends meet, which left my older sister and I to fend for ourselves, at a much too young age.

Ultimately, we packed our bags and moved to America. I was barely 13 years old. A terrible age to be thrust into the world of judgmental teenagers when the English language had not yet been conquered. My high school years were thereby wrought with self-doubt, anxiety and a crippling fear of being discovered as bisexual, a concept I hadn’t quite figured out myself.

In a strange way, modeling saved me. I was able to travel, to make money for my family, and to discover my true self. However, it was a quick path to drug abuse and sexual assault at the hands of photographers and clients. Childhood was fleeting to say the least. But I survived. I embraced my sexuality, my intelligence and my, dare I say, exhaustive work ethic.

My one means of escape has always been writing. I go into the depths of my own psyche and delve into any story that pleases my senses. While I have been lucky enough to earn a living as an actress, my heart lies in creating my own content. I think it’s important to bombard the world with voices such as my own. Female, ethnic, bisexual... with a penchant for writing about violence towards the very gender that once abused me.

Today, I strive to bring awareness, to give a voice to the silenced, and to help women rise in a world that still insists on denying us our rights and dampening our strengths.

As a mother, I believe we can create a better world by teaching our children what equality truly means."