I'm an underdog person, so I align myself with those who seem to be not considered valuable in polite society.

I don't believe in sampling some Tibetan music just to make it sound groovy, but you do your homework, you understand what you're doing with it.

I love writing dialogue, and I think a lot of my writing is visual and very cinematic.

I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up.

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

Writers and scholars have emerged in recent times (some familiar, some new) to continue to challenge the notion of a literature that encompasses the world - and reaffirms our existence in it. It is a multicultural vision that embraces and includes our shrinking universe; it is a multicultural vision that the white man fears and a vision that the rest of us can celebrate.

It's not just NYU. There are days when I feel like I'm stranded in some upscale mall in Pasadena. Don't even get me started on the insidious transformation of Bleecker Street!