I think that if you just write your characters you end up with something that people can access.

There's a stereotype that to be a strong black woman is to be strong about being black.

All of us, writers and non-writers alike, have incredible well-springs of personal experience and history. And we also have imagination - which I think is a kind of human miracle.

There is a forgotten black middle class in America - a group which is huge but underrepresented in the media and in art. It's difficult to talk about these things, because it forces one to talk in generalities, but that's my view. I do think the idea of a blanket class for black people is unfortunately still present.

By sixteen I thought, "Ah, this is all crap, you're all sheep, I'm not going to church, leave me alone." And then at a certain point in my teens I started to go to Catholic churches, by myself. Not because I wanted to be Catholic, but because I wanted to light a candle and say something like a prayer and just sit there. There was something I was missing or trying to reconnect with. But it was a secret at the time. I'd developed this cynical persona and the last thing I wanted to admit was that I was skulking around churches in my spare time.

One thing I am learning is to slow down. Multitasking is great, but I when try to do everything at warp speed I just end up with typos and stress.

Racial terrorism affects the lives of white people and black people and everyone, everything. Racism is contaminating. It can affect the dogs in the street. So the process of beginning to rid the country of prejudice was in itself a kind of nation-building.