We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aza Enigma. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aza below.

Aza, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

As The Friendly Felon, I have a felony background that interfered with my original plans for my life. For the first decade of having that big, red “F” stamped on my record, I struggled to stay afloat and to maintain stability in my life. It was not a path I liked and I just felt lost.
A few years after my conviction and with about 6 different jobs under my belt already, I decided to sign up for college courses to try to find a strong and stable direction in life, and well,… while it was a wandering path and a wild ride at times, I found that I loved writing and that I loved helping others through those hours of study and discussion.
So, I started writing about my experiences as a felon on my The Friendly Felon blog, and began doing much deeper research into how to overcome my background. I never really thought about doing this sort of research before I attempted college, but the classes helped me really focus on different things than what I typically thought about (like how to keep my water bill paid and how to provide better tools for my mother who had Multiple Sclerosis). College pushed me to think about everything in a new light and challenged me to change my status quo and the demand for research for those endless papers was another inspiration – like, wait a minute, I can probably find resources that might help me get over the obstacles my background presented. And I did. Not only for myself in the state I was convicted in, but I expanded that research to see what was available for the rest of the nation.
Not long after finishing my Associate’s Degree, I started thinking about how I could combine my efforts of research, writing, and the information I was learning as a psychology student and create a way to help others in a similar situation as me (a fellow human that made mistakes and wanted to stay out of trouble and build a more stable and safe lifestyle). I also started working on my Bachelor’s Degree and graduated the same year I decided to put all my felony research and experience into a guide book for my fellow felons seeking a different path in life.
And I didn’t stop there either, I kept going and found courses that taught me how to coach others through difficult life situations like my own and I’m currently developing re-entry courses to help felons that are nearing release dates from incarceration or supervision requirements find the best path for themselves. I’m also working on becoming an alcohol and drug counselor to be better able to address situations that involve addiction.
While I didn’t expect to be where I am in life now, I wouldn’t want to change anything about how I got to be here. I’m also networking and talking to folks on multiple platforms (including Cidspace – a great place to find support if you have a loved one currently incarcerated) who are looking for solutions to overcome their obstacles and I provide guidance and information to help them accomplish those goals (without getting into serious debt from student loans because that might be the only thing I regret from my experiences in life so far, lol)
So, while I might be a felon, there’s so much more to my story than that background branding. And I hope my fellow felons can discover this with me and find their paths to stable lives that keep them from returning to the system.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Aza Enigma, aka, The Friendly Felon, and I decided when I became the Friendly Felon in 2016 that I (and many other convicted persons) are more than our mistakes.

I’ve seen the statistics about criminal behavior, and if we’re very honest with ourselves, everyone is a criminal of some sort, we’ve all broken laws of some kind in our lives, whether it’s something like driving too fast or something more serious, but not everyone gets caught in those moments where they’re making those choices. So, we all make mistakes, and some of us get caught – leading to a record that is a detriment to finding and keeping stable work and housing. I understand being punished for our bad choices, but the interference with stability continues long after we serve out our time, and that’s where The Friendly Felon steps in to help.

I am an author, blogger, and re-entry coach and I use my experiences as a felon to help other felons get back on their feet and find a stable path in life. I also make lots of crafts because I’m ADHD and love to keep myself busy – because busy hands help keep me out of trouble. My crafts include epoxy resins, hand-felted hats and flowers, and jewelry that readers can find on my Instagram and (more recently) CidSpace pages, just search for Aza Enigma on either platform to see what I have available or to request a custom creation. I also offer writing services in multiple niches with a specialization in adult topics.

Readers can also find my book, The Friendly Felon’s Guide to Life After a Felony in multiple online bookstores, including my most recent special edition for commissary stores that I put together for 21st Street Publishing. This book is what I am most proud of so far in my journey as The Friendly Felon. It covers topics like surviving supervision, cutting connections, building new networks, identifying passions, creating goals, and provides a state-by-state guide of what relief programs are available for felons looking for a step upward in life.

I’m currently developing specialized courses for people with criminal backgrounds that specifically address the obstacles that felons face when attempting to re-enter society after conviction and incarceration. The ideas for this course were born after I volunteered at a women’s shelter and spoke with those that were facing similar obstacles as I had been in finding work, housing, and anything that remotely resembled a stable life. I hope that the information I’ve gathered as The Friendly Felon provides hope, inspiration, and guidance for anyone struggling to find stability in life.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience is something that truly defines my entire journey, so it’s a bit difficult to pick one example. I mean, you already know that I found myself with a felony conviction that has been a major complication in finding a stable way of life. Hmm, I suppose we’ll cover the struggles with employment in the early years of my conviction.

Even before the conviction itself, I found that having charges in the court system at all made keeping work difficult. I was working in an automotive job at the time when everything happened, and my employer revealed to me that he was losing customers because they were discovering that I worked at that location, so while he knew that I was still a decent human in a bad place at the time, he had to let me go so he could keep his income stream steady as possible.

I was able to find other work through various temp agencies, but they were, of course, temporary – meaning I was still unable to find stability. I attempted to pursue other work, but getting through the interview process proved to be pretty tricky, especially when I realized that it was better to be honest about my background upfront, rather than waiting for a background check to decide to fire me. So I had to experiment with how to disclose my record while still keeping decent chances of getting hired. This took a while to figure out, and it gets more complicated because it really comes down to how the interviewer feels about the background reveal and how we handle that reveal. In my case, I’ve found that it’s helpful to show that I have remorse for what I did in the past and to add that I’ve learned through my mistakes – while also providing proof of that learning – like my volunteer work, letters of character from the network I’ve built, and other similar items that I call ‘positive proof’. Most of the time it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but sometimes it’s also a good thing to be redirected by life, because, well, I wouldn’t be The Friendly Felon without these experiences and having heard no when attempting to get various jobs. I would probably be doing something else that doesn’t do as much good for others as what The Friendly Felon does. And the part of this work I like the most is being able to see someone else succeed in life, it’s a beautiful thing to see a person blossom and overcome their personal obstacles…and I wouldn’t be experiencing that without the difficulties I’ve been through.

Looking back, I think that having so many experiences in a wide variety of industries was useful in helping me find out what I liked and didn’t like in terms of a career. I had also never realized that there were so many different jobs available, even in my rural area, so while the overall experience was a hardship, it did have a silver lining of sorts. The constant changes were a challenge, and while they tested me in ways I never expected, I came out stronger and smarter with each step (some of the steps were forward, others, backward, and others yet were sideways, but hey, steps are steps) I took.

Eventually, I found certain jobs were better for my skillsets, interests, and mental health demands and discovered that when I directed my energy toward my passions and set boundaries with what I can and cannot tolerate, I could have a chance at building something meaningful in life that also provided stability for myself and my loved ones. And now I share the knowledge my resilience led me to with others, attempting to inspire them and help them find that they are capable of reaching their goals.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Well, there’s a few of these, I mean, I guess the most obvious lesson that I had to unlearn was thinking that having any sort of criminal record meant a person was horrible in some way. My bio-father had been an officer for a time, and while he passed very early in my life, I grew up hearing stories of him upholding the law and locking up criminals, so that concept was pretty strong early on. At least until I hit those mid-teen years where we can make some rather…interesting choices in life that impact the rest of our lives.

I mean, when we’re growing up, we’re taught to boo the villain, to cheer when the bad guy is caught, and to fear the stereotypical criminal. And I understand why we’re taught that to some extent. I mean, there are individuals that have shown no remorse for committing insidious crimes.

But, the fact is, crime is a wide spectrum, and there are so many humans that have far less violent and threatening records than what we see in media, that are treated like they aren’t humans at all. Even in my small realm of existence as a single convicted individual in a rural community, I’ve had people completely turn 180 degrees after I revealed my background and I only have a moderate theft record. I lost friends, was cut off by family, and lost chances of employment and housing just about any time I brought up the fact of my felony conviction.

When a person hears about a conviction, they tend to get a certain look on their face for a moment before they fully process that information, the eyes pop open a bit, the jaw drops at least a little, sometimes there’s even a small gasp. Once they’ve processed the reveal, it can go either way, some folks will be understanding because they know that many crimes stem from survival in poverty or struggling with under or over treated pain or psychiatric issues, amongst other things – others not so much. The thing that hurts the most though, at least in my experience, is the drop in trust. Because, now that we’ve revealed that past, many people think we’re doomed to repeat those behaviors, even after years of good behavior.

One thing I’ve learned about being a convicted felon and talking to other felons over the years, is that our experiences are far more complex than most will ever assume. They’ll see our records and make their own assumptions and frequently ignore our actual experiences and the variables that shaped those circumstances we found ourselves in. So, I encourage more listening and more open communication with each other, so that we might understand each others perspectives better and find space in our hearts to offer second chances, because when it comes down to it, most of us are decent people who made mistakes and just want to be able to provide for our basic needs like any other person on this world. So, that’s the lesson that I had to unlearn, and I hope it inspires a few to also unlearn at least a little of this common perspective on the convicted.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thefriendlyfelon.wordpress.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/azaenigma/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aza-enigma-1a82037b/
• Twitter: https://x.com/aza_enigma
• Other: https://www.cidspace.com/AzaEnigma
  The Friendly Felon's Guide to Life After a Felony: Commissary Edition
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