I have met women who don't have close women friends, and I've always been like, "How could that possibly be?"

I pay a lot of attention to whitespace. I pay a lot of attention to the rhythm of words together.

Lately, I'd been feeling like I was standing outside watching everything and everybody. Wishing I could take the part of me that was over there and the part of me that was over here and push them together—make myself into one whole person like everybody else.

To watch your home change in front of you is surprising. But at the same time, going someplace like Mississippi, makes me appreciate even this.

Fifteen. Sixteen was probably something, but fifteen - fifteen was a place between here and nowhere.

Where I grew up, it was all people who were black and Latino, people who look like me. Now I live in a neighborhood where very, very few people look like me.

I think people are sometime reluctant to read outside of their own race. This is heartbreaking.