Ishmael Beah

Last night Ball State University welcomed a very gifted and talented writer to campus to speak about his book that was assigned for the freshman to read. Before even walking into the auditorium I was extremely excited. I read his book over the summer and it seemed to be one of those things that I could just not put down. There was a new turn or some kind of drama with the flip of every page. I had edtremely high expectations going into his speech. When he stepped on stage, first of all, he looked nothing like I imagined. He was dressed very nicely and looked a lot younger than anticipated. Throughout his whole speech he amazed me with every word he spoke. He was so uplifting and how he looked at life, regardless of what he went through was incredible. How and why he wrote the book was something that I found very interesting. The fact that he wrote it with no intention of it being published and just for himself was not what I expected. How he wrote the book to give other people a "voice" was very deep. In the end when he responded to the questions he was great and very down to earth with it all, even when asked to rap. I really felt like you could connect with him and he was not another celebrity author. All in all I really enjoyed what he had to say and learned a lot. It was my first time hearing an author speak, and I really hope it's not my last.