I had observed people whose identity crises around race seemed analogous to other people's identity crises around gender.

I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs.

I had observed people whose identity crises around race seemed analogous to other people's identity crises around gender.

The truth is that an intellectual life is available to almost anyone, almost anywhere, if they work hard enough and are given some kind of access point.

There's been a lot of talk about black men and the presence and absence of black men in positions of power in American culture.

The hip-hop that I really connected with was Public Enemy, KRS-One, Ice Cube, and N.W.A. That late '80s and early '90s era. The beginning of gangster rap and the beginning of politically conscious rap. I had a very immature, adolescent feeling of, "Wow, I can really connect with these people through the stories they're telling in this music."

There is something very quiet and reserved and pessimistic about Obama's temperament that is deeply un-American. There are those people who claim, "Oh, he wasn't born here" - all that is nonsense.