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

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

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

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.

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.

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.