History is not the linear sort of movement toward better and better things.

In terms of optimism, I am optimistic. I do think that, in the long term, that America will right itself. I have to think so.

A pool of melancholy blooms in my chest and rushes into my body like deep-blue blood.

There is no shortage of ways that people profit indirectly from the misery and cruelty in other places. Even now, the shirts we wear and the tomatoes we eat. There are unfortunately unfair and inhumane conditions - including literal slavery - all over the world.

The election of Donald Trump is, to me, this very clownish personality with no political experience, who had literally been using fascist slogans in his campaign. It had seemed so impossible. Even after he was elected, and even now, it still feels impossible. It felt like we had fallen into this wormhole of history.

One thing we've learned about Donald Trump - this candidate first, president-elect, and now president - is that he has this sort of reptilian instinct for rooting out supposed enemies and finding people he can whip up distrust into rage.

One thing that fiction does is it allows us to take big picture questions, big issues, big moral and socio-political changes and see how they play out on real people's lives, with real individuals.