About us

Arline's Story

Arline's has a life-explorer’s heart and storyteller’s soul. She is insatiably curious about others—what are their stories, their beliefs and values, their life journeys, their life insights and their unrecognized gifts. She applies those same magnifying lenses to her own life, looking for transfiguring experiences and meaning. 

    As a retired journalist, editor, ghostwriter and public affairs consultant,  Arline realizes that modern-day stories, much like the parables of old, can uplift the heart, enrich the mind and transform the person, their community and possibly the world.  

    Arline earned a degree in journalism from the University of Southern California. She attended the university during the tumultuous 1960s and wrote and edited articles for the Daily Trojan about that period of upheaval including USC students participating on freedom bus rides in the South and President John F. Kennedy’s talk at the first-time voters convocation in 1960 and his subsequent assassination on November 22, 1963. Following graduation, she joined  the (Long Beach) Independent, Press-Telegram, a daily newspaper, first as an “Action Line” columnist and then as a community news reporter. From there, her journalism career took her to serving as editor for the Kern Valley Sun, a weekly newspaper in the Sequoia National Forest region of California; editor of an international dredging and marine construction magazine;  editor of medical books and articles on laparoscopy, fetoscopy and gynecology for a national medical association; public affairs consultant for an alcohol- and drug-treatment corporation with more than 100 programs and hospitals nationwide; and ultimately managing editor for Psychiatric Times, an internationally recognized publication for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.  Many of her articles have been distributed, republished and/or cited in scientific books and journals and have won awards.

    As a freelancer, Arline collaborated with experts to prepare articles and books on topics ranging from segmented marketing to mental health problems of border and immigrant youth.  

    Several individuals she met and interviewed prompted her to examine how an experience—accident, illness, death, war, disaster, loss, revelation of a secret—impacted their lives, affected their behavior and altered their perspectives.  Their sharing caused Arline to ponder how she would react under the same or similar circumstances and to consider other ways of helping them. So, she went through three years of certificated training and became a volunteer counselor for more than five years, helping to establish a weekly bereavement group and work with clients in crises.

    Ever seeking alternative perspectives about life, Arline travels internationally as often as she is able. It is a life-long passion fueled by being a summer exchange student to India when she was in college and a summer host to foreign students while she was single-parenting her two children. She has visited more than 27 countries, examining how different cultures and histories influence peoples’ values, beliefs and behavior.  

    Arline also loves singing in choirs and community sing-alongs, attending self-development workshops and meditation retreats, spending rejuvenation-time in nature, being with and traveling with her children, son-in-law and two grandchildren and indulging in butter pecan ice cream and Fig Newton cookies.