I'm an obsessive writer who needs and loves revision. Writing helps me learn and helps me teach.

In essay writing, I'm trying to push the form of expository writing. I'm trying to remember, trying to reckon, trying to find connections with the world, the nation and me, but I'm always trying to push the form, too, without being too obvious that I'm trying to push the form.

Black is not a vice. Nor is segregation a virtue.

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

I'm also, than anything else, a teacher and a student. And without the four hours, I'm pretty monsterish. For real.

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.