To produce that identity among young people required guinea pigs.

To produce that identity among young people required guinea pigs.

Dominican men are told to look at women all the time, but they're definitely not told to see them.

My art feels like it's real disobedient. I can fill notebooks with observations and maybe they find their way into the work unconsciously, which is great. I've never been able to directly plug, like to take a little snip that I've picked up on the street and transfer it into a story. I don't know what's wrong, but it never works that way.

In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace--and because you know in your lying cheater's heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get.

It's just a matter of willpower. The day you decide it's over, it's over. You never get over it.

Once someone gets a little escape velocity going, ain't no play in the world that will keep them from leaving.