The "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others" essay was so hard to write because of the memories, the sensory stuff, but also because it didn't follow the form of any essay that I've ever read. And the truth that I was exploring necessitated that obliteration of traditional form, I think.

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.

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 not good enough as a person and definitely not good enough as a writer.

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

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

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