by Sylvia Perez Sylvia Perez won last years Distinguished Speakers Essay Contest. In the essay below Perez describers her process for writing the essay that won her the oppurtunity to have dinner with the award-winning journalist & author Laura Ling. On the night of September 19, 2014 I sat down at my dining room table and stared at a prompt for an essay contest. The winner would personally meet and have dinner with journalist and author Laura Ling. This was the prompt: