I'm accountable - this sounds emo - to black American writing, Southern writing, Southern black American writing, American writing and my people. That's kind of what keeps me accountable.

Long Division has a lot of Afrosurrealist impulses. I think the book was more Afrofuturist when it was like 700 pages.

I write two hours in the morning and two hours before bed no matter. No matter what. I also write during the day if I have to get something down, but the four hours a day is the one thing in my life I don't fool with.

I wanted to create a book that was unafraid of black bodies, yet super interested in thinking about the relationship of love to body and sexuality without relying on tired understandings of "gay" "bi" or "straight."

I'm not good enough as a person and definitely not good enough as a writer.

Not so deep down, we all know that safety is an illusion, that only character melds us together. That’s why most of us do everything we can (healthy and unhealthy) to ward off that real feeling of standing alone so close to the edge of the world.

First of all, the novel should be a critique of the novels that have come before it in a language that broadens the audience of American literature. Second, it's really got to be invested in a number of what-if questions.