I like the idea of a trilogy. It's cool. I like the word. When you do four, the word isn't cool - not as cool.

Obviously, I can't tell the story of what it is to be a black girl, but maybe I can tell something else. Girlhood is not about what it's like to be a black girl, it's about what it's like to be a girl.

I think I like about coming-of-age stories is that there's everything in them. It's a genre that kind of contains everything: you have the chronicle, you can go into naturalism, but it's also about transforming physically, so it's kind of a fantastical genre.

I intentionally leave adults out in my stories, not to say that they're not in charge or that they don't care, or that they're failing at what they do. Not at all. It's two things: It's a way to be true to what adolescence feels like, because, okay, your parents may be around, but you still don't want them to be around. What you go through, you go through alone, I think.

I was a lot younger - when I wrote Water Lilies. I was like 26. It felt so natural to write about adolescence.

I like the idea of a trilogy. It's cool. I like the word. When you do four, the word isn't cool - not as cool.

I mean, putting women in the center of a movie and not talking about men, that's already political, right? And you know, political doesn't mean that it sends this message or that is has a statement. It's also political in its aesthetic project.