If we were asked to identify the world’s most powerful movers and shakers, storytellers probably wouldn’t make it to the top of our lists. But stories wield tremendous power, shaping our perceptions of others for better or worse. In a fascinating TED Talk entitled “The Danger of a Single Story,” Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says that “Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.” She warns that if we are exposed to only a single story about another people, we risk a critical misunderstanding. “This is how to create a single story: show a people as one thing—as only one thing—over and over again, and that is what they become.”