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

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?

I want a theory to come out to guide policy.

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.

Bruce Lee, before he fought, he would try to visualize how the fight would go, because he was visualizing a victorious path out of the combat.

Because I write intuitively and image-by-image and moment-by-moment, my writing has to be powered by feelings and emotions.

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.