Mainly, I try not to think about my readers as I write - I just think of my characters and myself - If they're interesting to me, my hope is that they'll be interesting to others as well.

Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.

I rewrite my books until they're mostly memorized so that's a lot of rewrites, a lot of time spent with my stories.

I think I had gotten messages really young that poetry wasn't for me, that it was for, basically, some dead white men. My experience and my intellect was on the outside of understanding that. I think that's what's so destructive.

In all your getting, get understanding.

Yes, writing is not easy. But can any writer imagine NOT writing?

For me as a writer, it was understanding that we're so far behind in our way of dealing with death. We put someone in the ground, we bury them or we burn them, and then we're supposed to just move on and kind of get over it.