I can write anywhere. I actually wrote more than I ever did when I had small children. My children were never a hindrance.

When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground.

Sometimes when someone says something stupid, my friends and I just read the reviews out loud and collapse with laughter at the stupidity of it all.

If I describe a person's physical appearance in my writing, which I often do, especially in fiction, I never say someone is "black" or "white." I may describe the color of their skin - black eyes, beige skin, blue eyes, dark skin, etc. But I'm not talking about race.

It's very funny, American society: White culture can do all sorts of things and get away with it, but the minute a black person does it, it's interpreted in some way.

I'm writing out of desperation. I felt compelled to write to make sense of it to myself - so I don't end up saying peculiar things like 'I'm black and I'm proud.' I write so I don't end up as a set of slogans and clichés.

Most of the nations that have serious gardening cultures have, or had, empires. You can't have this luxury of pleasure without somebody paying for it. This is nice to know. It's nice to know that when you sit down to enjoy a plate of strawberries, somebody got paid very little so that you could have your strawberries. It doesn't mean the strawberries will taste different, but it's nice to enjoy things less than we do. We enjoy things far too much, and it leads to incredible pain and suffering.