My childhood was a long-term nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. My father was very violent and abusive, so I never had a chance...

Growing up I was an extremely naughty kid who loved to mess with people. Most of the time, it was all in good fun, but I remember one...

In 1999, my parents faced some financial struggles, so Grammy and Grandpa opened the door to us. It was just like the weekends we...

These were the questions of a nine-year-old boy, the eldest child in the home, unaware of the coming hardships he might have to face...

Sadly, she wasn’t taught to make her own needs a priority in life. It was a product of the time, when sexism more avidly kept women in...

I was born in 1985, in a country that doesn’t exist on the map anymore. But, the land is still here and the land is still the same...

We were a short 10-minute drive away from the bustling capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Our backyard opened to lush green jungle that...

I used to love watching my mom do her makeup. I remember how my mom would put me in a highchair when I was just about one or two years...

Today it has become a revamped, artsy district, but when I was born in 1987, it was a place full of gangs, violence, and drugs. I thought...

It was not by mistake that I was named after my clan, “Nyakach.” My parents must have had great hopes for me when they gave me this name...

I survived 16 years of military life through premonition, an instinctive survival gift that enabled me to make life saving decisions for...

Growing up, we never thought we lacked anything because everyone in the village seemed to have exactly what your family had. If you ate...

I’ve always been the type of person that would go out and experience something for myself rather than watch someone else do it...

I was the sixth born in a family of nine siblings. Though I was meek, being my mother’s last born offered me the protection I needed...

At the time, Pablo Escobar, a drug lord and narco-terrorist, was wreaking havoc in Colombia and my parents didn’t feel that living there...

I once read somewhere that, “Theatres are modern churches: huddled masses in the dark, looking up at those in the light, telling them...

Living simply has been ingrained in me. I was born in the late 1950s in Danville, Kentucky, and raised by my great-grandmother...

In my home country of Kenya, it is not common for people to have dogs as pets. They are often used for protection or as working dogs...

I think the hardest question for me to answer is also one of the simplest: “Where are you from?” I often find myself pausing before...

The doctors rushed to her aid in a frenzy, not only because she had suffered domestic abuse, but also because she was pregnant with me...