With kids, they force you to get out of bed. They force you to smile. They remind you of spontaneity.

People seem very comfortable having a kind of Cheesecake Factory-type of life.

My grandfather is Portuguese. He betrayed what was expected of him and married my grandmother of African descent on my father's side.

I'm interested in someone who's mired in grief: how do you get back to that thing that makes them warm? Because you know that's in there.

I think poetry can lead to policy, and I can hear the laughter when I say that.

I can't stay engaged for years with a book unless it has feelings. It can't be an idea for me - it has to be a felt thing.

If you die without agency as a child, but you have agency in your body [in the novel], how is it to be enacted unless it is being reimagined by a writer?