Telling these stories.
My hope is to let people feel witnessed, to let them feel they're not alone, and to share something that on the surface seems very specific.
But to find the universal in that, to find the humanity in that, because ultimately that is what we are looking for in each other, in the art that we create and the art that we consume.
That is the thing that I am always looking for.
So imagine leaving everything you know behind to start a life in a brand new country, all in the hope of providing a better life for yourself and your family.
After all is said and done, you've made sacrifice after sacrifice to feed and clothe and care for yourself and eventually children in this new and unfamiliar place that doesn't even feel all that welcoming all the time.
Your biggest hope for your kids is that they become self sufficient and ideally, make you proud in the process.
This, like many other immigrant families, was the hope of Saba Tahir's parents.
And as a New York Times bestselling author, it's safe to say she has fulfilled her parents hopes and dreams despite where she came from.
But what about her hopes and dreams?
What about her life?
What about her experience of growing up?
That is why I'm so excited to dive into this chat with Sabat today, where she shares a story about how a kid who grew up in her family's 18 room motel in the Mojave Desert went from devouring fantasy novels to writing mega hit books of her own.
Sabah was born to muslim pakistani immigrants in Great Britain, and she lived there for the first year of her life before moving to California, where she grew up in the Mojave Desert in the middle of a naval base at the small motel her parents owned.
She has been a professional author since 2015 and a journalist for the Washington Post before that, and her books, including her critically acclaimed Ember and the Ashes series, have sold more than a million copies worldwide, are New York Times international bestsellers, and had been honored by Time magazine on a list of the hundred best fantasy books of all time.
Her work has appeared on so many best books of the year list, including Amazon, Buzzfeed, Wall Street Journal, Time and Entertainment Weekly.
And her latest book, all my rage is different.
It draws heavily from her experience and feelings of isolation, growing up as an outcast, as one of the few south asian families in her small military hometown in the middle of the desert.
And in my conversation with Sabah today, we explore those external as well as the internal influences that help to tell a story that embodies a deeply personal but universal rage.
Of course, none of us can choose where we come from or where we grow up.