Magical realism as a declaration in the text is usually when someone can't speak and then they must be magically reinvigorated in some way.

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 usually feel something before I know it.

Once I became historically aware, I realized there are these formative moments of history tied around tragedy and disaster and sacrifice, that led people to survive and take stock and move on with some kind of notion of betterment.

Whenever I went to an historical moment that was sad or where something terrible happened, it was, for me, a learning moment, a teaching moment for those who survived.

To close the empathetic gap, you really want to get the person emotionally identifying [with your subject and characters], and then when you do that, then you want sneak in a lesson about history and about politics and whatever else you might think about.

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.