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“I think writing Young Adult fiction is about writing into the realm of possibility. At that age, people are so much on the cusp between childhood and adulthood, and it's both this time of making decisions and this time of opportunity. I visualize it as a place where there are all these doors that are closed, but not necessarily locked. It's about kids having this choice—not every door is going to be easy to open. Some doors are going to be pulling back against those kids. But I think Young Adult literature is about opening those doors.”

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Author:Samira Ahmed
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“Saying his name out loud is a reminder of everything I've lost. "My boyfriend. I guess he's still my boyfriend." I touch my infinity necklace. "I don't know when I'll see him again. And who's he going to take to prom?" Ayesha's mouth drops open, and she tries to hold in a laugh. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. I love how prom is on the list right after freedom and breathing." "Oh my God. That's totally ridiculous, right? There are these moments when I still think this place isn't real- like it's a horrible dream. And for that minute, my mind feels free to think about, like, prom." "I get it. We have to have those moments of remembering that we're human and thinking of regular stuff, or else the weight of this place would crush us. Like, have you seen Footloose?”

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Book:Internment
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“Dear reader, I wrote this book for a boy I knew who died too young. I wrote this book for "our three winners" whose lives were ended by bigotry. I wrote this book for an inventive kid whose world was turned upside down because he built a clock. In America, we tend to ignore an uncomfortable history- our history. We want our wrongs to stay in the past to bury the truth and see history through rose-colored glasses, but the thing about buried truths? They come back to haunt you. For years, the ghosts of all those this nation has wronged have been rising up clamoring for their stories to be recognized. It's up to us to give voice to those whose voices have been forcibly oppressed or forgotten. We might not be able to give them Justice- because what is Justice to the victims of racism bigotry misogyny- but we can speak truth to power and insist on accountability. When I started writing Hollow Fires in 2019, it was against the backdrop of years of toxic damaging lies from our elected official, from the highest offices of this country. It was in the midst of a societal upheaval of people taking to the streets demanding change, so we could strive for that more perfect union politicians constantly laud. I wrote this book to ask uncomfortable questions and confront hard truths because inside us there's a small voice that says we can do better. We must. These voices need to be a chorus. A song we belt out together. And now as Hollow Fires goes to print, I'm watching heartbreaking images on the news of Afghans trying to flee their country fearful that the Taliban will retaliate against them, journalists, human rights workers and interpreters just like Jawad's father. Unfortunately, the United States has a terrible history of occupying other nations, asking those country's citizens for help, and then all too often ignoring the pleas of local allies and leaving them behind to potentially face imprisonment or torture for aiding the United States. We've witnessed Afghans desperately handing their babies to American soldiers over airport barricades, we've seen images of people trying to jump onto departing US. Military planes, reviving painful memories of Saigon in 1975, yet we hear a cacophony of hate from comfortably situated xenophobic American pundits decrying the potential influx of Afghan refugees. Mind you, these refugees have been forcibly displaced in part because of the actions of the United States and the few who are lucky enough to make it to the United States and get visas, permanent residency and citizenship (make no mistake these are huge hurdles) are sometimes cruelly subjected to bigotry and hate in the communities they land in as Americans. Shouldn't we ask more of ourselves? Isn't that what it means to call on the better angels of our nature? The commentators who scream against allowing in refugees, the same talking heads who think the horrifyingly inhumane treatment of migrants at our border with Mexico is justified buy into a deeply ingrained American myth- that they are always only "winners" and "losers". That war is a zero sum game. That extending a helping hand to a displaced individual somehow means that somewhere some American is getting less, but that binary is a lie. Here's the truth. Giving aid and comfort to a displaced person doesn't mean we can't also help Americans in need. We can and must do both. We have choices to make. Important ones. About our future, about who we are as a nation, as a people and as human beings. One of these choices is to live in a world where we call alternative facts what they really truly are- lies that obfuscate, deceits that give cover to Injustice, tools of cynical politicians. I'm asking us to speak tough truths out loud. To know we can do better and be better. I'm asking us to step forward, to face the truth of all we are, lanterns held high, eliminating the dark. Warmly, Samira Ahmed”

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Author:Samira Ahmed
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