For children, diversity needs to be real and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo. It means talking to and spending time with kids not like them so that they may discover those kids are in fact just like them.

As a writer, as a storyteller, you have to have your emotions close, and the older I've gotten, the less I've worried about not displaying emotions.

I don't think it's good when entertainment tries to proselytize and I don't think people ultimately want someone showing up in their living room and just hectoring at them all day long. But if you can create a space where people are caught up in something - whether it's a drama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or science fiction - that's when people give over their minds and allow their emotions to flow.

I've no desire to start a movement, to be the first name on an open petition, or to be the poster child for disgruntled writers.

You can treat faith as part of people's it's lives.

Facts tend to take the punch out of a good hate rant and are therefore left best unsaid.

As a coping mechanism, or as a way to make a little hard count by shilling demons in the shadows, I try not to belittle the thought process of the conspiracy theorists. As a cocktail waitress in Vegas once schooled me: never get down on anybody else's hustle.