“You never know who might say the words that will lift you up from a dark place, and what your salvation might look like. Writing and nightmares made me who I am today. I was studying politics and philosophy when a professor who wasn’t even my teacher, told me to give him a few pages of my story at a time. No pressure, just a few. I was restless and troubled and he could see it. My nightmares were my memory, my reminder that there were children just like the one I had been, who could be going through the same or a similar experience. I wanted to write for that child.” Ishmael Beah