It was 1999, and Maestro Camilleri was reviewing the texts written by his students.

“Who signed this AMA?” he asked.

I raised my hand. He reached out his, looked at me, and simply repeated, “AMA.”

Later, after reading the story of a woman who was soul, who was love, who was wounded—who was AMA—Vincenzo Mollica would say, “AMA, that great writer called destiny.”

“Keep writing,” Camilleri concluded, “and never stop being AMA.”

And today, here I am: writing, loving, and being AMA.