Alumni Profile: Arabia Morgan

By: Amirah Adigun

Photo Credit: Arabia Morgan

Meet Alumni Arabia Morgan! She came to UMBC as a transfer student and originally majored in Theatre, but later changed her major to Media and Communication Studies with a minor in Theatre. Arabia graduated 11 years ago in December 2012 and has many accomplishments over the years. Currently residing in Los Angeles, she has worked as an influencer for multiple brands such as Firmoo and Zeelool which are glasses companies, because she also wears glasses and has also modeled for Shein and Romwe on their live accounts. Her biggest accomplishment has been the recent publishing of her first Novel titled  But I’m Fine tho: Khadija Parker which is available at Barnes & Nobles and Amazon. The novel is a romantic journey of self love and follows the story of Khadija Parker, who is a young woman from Charlotte, North Carolina. Khadija has spent most of her life as a people-pleaser and hopeless romantic and is in hopes of finding her one-true love. On her 25th birthday she was still unmarried, but held out hope because she felt that there were many unforeseen obstacles preventing her from reaching her happily ever after. It wasn’t until reaching her 30’s that a light bulb illuminated making things in her life appear a little clearer for her, which is when Khadija learns to close the revolving door of broken promises and begins to seek her own destiny.

What inspired you to write this novel? Arabia recalls she started writing this novel during the pandemic specifically June of 2022 and officially finished in November 2022. She explains she had recently gone through a failed engagement and to cope with the pain she was going through, she began to write. She mentions that one day she “found a gray hair that prompted me to write my feelings of what I felt was a midlife crisis” which relates to her character in her novel who is also suffering a mid-life crisis. Arabia talks about the things that inspire her to write and she mentions her personal life encounters as well as the life encounters of the people around her. She recalls while at UMBC she had a diary which she wrote from about 2011 to 2019. In this diary she would write about the different men she would interact with. These men were not people that she was in a romantic relationship with, but rather people she met at a club or any social setting. “ I wanted to write until I found my husband,” Arabia states. Writing was not only a way of coping for her, but it was also hopeful, that one day maybe her life can look like what she desires and envisions for herself. “Oddly enough I did not find my husband ha ha” Arabia laughs, she mentions how when she does find her husband it will be a fairytale ending as she desires and this vision is seen through how she has written her character, Khadija. 

When asked about how the publishing of her first novel personally impacted her life, she mentions how she had conflicting feelings. During the process of writing the novel she stated how she wondered if anyone would be able to relate to her work that is also connected to her own personal life. How would people view her after the publishing of her book, would they see her as Arabia Morgan or as just the author of the book they really enjoy? “A lot of people rather read fairytales and happy endings. I rather write in truth.” Arabia states as these questions plagued her mind because she has now become a writer and these feelings questioned how her image would be seen by the public with this novel and how her personal life is seemingly connected to the story she wrote. One advice Arabia advises to those who wish to write their own novel “to just do it! Don’t worry about the logistics of it yet. You are an artist so go be that artist and CREATE!”