I don't believe in predestination - except for genetic predilections.

There should really not be anything gratuitous in a work of art. Sometimes what seems as if it's gratuitous may be a passage in which a character is being characterized so that the reader comes to know him or her better.

Death is just the last scene of the last act.

The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

Yes, 'Black Girl/White Girl' might be described as a 'coming-of-age' novel, at least for the survivor Genna. It is also intended as a comment on race relations in America more generally: we are 'roommates' with one another, but how well do we know one another?

On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure.

"Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.