I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways.

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

I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways.

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.

I'm interested in how the confessional is so abrasively critiqued today. I'm not really comfortable with simply confessing but I do think "confessing" is a major part of reckoning.

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 a black writer from Mississippi. That's what I most consider myself.