You have to find a way of shutting the future out and focusing on the writing. One of the problems I'll have with writing my second book is getting back into a situation where I think about the words on the page rather than the publishing industry, or success, or any kind of readership I may now have. I'll have to do what writers do, which is focus on the story and nothing else.

I try to find the beauty in things. On dark days, I sit in my armchair looking at clouds and I am awed at how rain is made.

Half of what's wrong with people today is that they ain't got no place to go that makes them peaceful.

I'm wary of being put in boxes. But at the same time, it's important that I embrace my identity as a writer who happens to be gay, and in my own way I do that.

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

If there had never been the Great Migration there would never have been jazz, there would never have been Michelle Obama. A lot of amazing black people exist in this country because of the Great Migration. That's nation-building.

You have to find a way of shutting the future out and focusing on the writing. One of the problems I'll have with writing my second book is getting back into a situation where I think about the words on the page rather than the publishing industry, or success, or any kind of readership I may now have. I'll have to do what writers do, which is focus on the story and nothing else.