As part of a diversity training that I am doing at work, I was encouraged to watch the following TedTalk: The Danger of A Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

I absolutely LOVED it. Adichie is, first off, a great storyteller. To be honest, I’ve never heard of her before this point. But after hearing this talk, I really want to read one of her novels and explore her work. (In fact, I just picked up her Americanah and am excited to dive in.)

Second off, and more importantly, Adichie had some amazing insights into the power of story – and how damaging it can be when we are only given one story to represent an entire culture. Or, even worse, when you are given no stories to represent your culture.

As a writer (and avid reader), I felt the truth of what she was saying. I couldn’t help and think back to the stories that I read as a child. A lot of them looked like me, came from communities like mine, and were set in the same socio-economic status. My life view was affirmed every time I opened the pages.

How different would it have been if that had not been the case? Adichie talks about how, growing up in Nigeria, the books that were most accessible were either British or American. So they had blond hair and blue eyes. They ate apples. And drank things like ginger beer. All things that were not the norm for her day to day experience. However, when she started writing stories of her own (around age 7), these were the things that she included. She didn’t know it was even possible to have people who looked like her in story books.

That absolutely breaks my heart.

It also gives me purpose.

As a writer, a theatre practitioner, and a mother, I want to expand the types of stories that I tell and that I consume. I want to help people see themselves on stage, on screen, or in a book. I want to help them know that their stories matter. That they are worth telling. And that they are worth sharing with the world.