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

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.

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.

One of the problems with a lot of "confessional" writing is that it starts and stops with the confessional and doesn't really tie the "I" into a "we" at all. I'm still surprised at how mad critics get at that kind of confessional writing.

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

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

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