When my birth parents were murdered, I stayed outdoors all night with the bodies. Years later in America, around fourteen, my psychiatrist explained to me that staying with the bodies that night made me fearless. He said that it made me an 'emotional exhibitionist' and told me never to let people convince me that I was weird for speaking with clarity and passion.

I learned English by watching soaps as a kid, and since I don't have any formal education and can't teach at the universities like other literary writers do.

Men always liked me, because I was very damaged and unpredictable, my children's father claims that I have multiple personalities, but I don't.

I do feel it's crucial that women's opinions be taken equally with men's. But still'I have not been accepted by the American white feminist writers and activists, and frankly I don't care to be, so I am a womanist. I am feisty and I am given to womanish behavior.

As for feminism, I am a womanist more than I'm a feminist.

I'm not talking about my children's father'he's a wonderful black man, the hero of my life, and he's never disrespected or betrayed me. But I'm talking about what I see in the streets and in the media, this naked hatred that black men have towards the authentic black woman'which is really an indication of black men's hatred for blackness itself.

When I couldn't speak English, I loved silent films circa 1914-1929, Abel Gance being my favorite director.