My identity is linked to my grandmother, who's pure Filipino, as pure as you can probably get. And that shaped my imagination. So that's how I identify.

Becoming a mother has helped make me a tougher, stronger writer.

I'm preparing for a multimedia theater piece, Airport Music, that's coming up in New York City.

I think for a lot of so-called post-colonial peoples, there's a feeling of not being quite legitimate, of not being pure enough.

There is real beauty in my eyes when I lose my mind.

Growing up in the Philippines, I loved all kinds of movies. We had a very healthy film industry there when I was a child. It's now gotten very limited. They only make action movies and hard-core exploitation movies. Women get raped; men get shot.

Music is very influential to my writing, as are theater and film.