Every time you hear anyone talk about the Caribbean, whether it's Caribbeans themselves or people outside, there's always talk about women's bodies. Talk about this voluptuousness, this kind of stereotype of what a Caribbean person is. And I think these are stereotypes that even people inside the culture, we actually sometimes claim them and we're very proud.

An ear will never do you wrong, but I know writers who... most of the language they use is just extracted language from other languages they've read. I am a big-time reader, but I mix and match.

Usually at the end of each story we're thrown clear out of the story's world and then we're given a new world to enter. What's unique about a linked collection is that it can deliver both sets of narrative pleasures - the novel's long immersion into character-world and the story anthology's energetic (and mortal) brevity - the linked collection is unique in its ability to be both abrupt and longitudinal simultaneously.

Clavo saca clavo. Nothing sacas nothing, you reply. No one will ever be like her.

Because I can't seem to escape it. It's a way for me to address and counter my questions about what it means to be human, or, in my case a Dominican human who grew up in New Jersey.

What a surprise (we all know how tolerant the tolerant are).

So the kind of boy I was, or that I was told to be, you were kind of this like half-gladiator, half-dude who, you know, was supposed to have as many girls as possible and work until your heart exploded, have no fear, you know.