We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.

Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.

If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices.

I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.

If you don't understand, ask questions. If you're uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask anyway. It's easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here's to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.

I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is obvious to everyone else.

That her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out