I don't claim to say, "All black women are like me," because they're not.

I don't claim to say, "All black women are like me," because they're not.

I've been thinking a lot about folks denying what has happened in history, or just not acknowledging it.

It's hard for black women to ask for help. We think we don't need it. We're used to being in pain and living with it.

I spent a lot of time trying to layer upon layer upon layer as I wrote. I think that's often the fear of a writer, that little nuances won't get picked up.

I'm working on a young adult novel. I've been working on it for a while, because I don't know how to write a novel and I'm teaching myself. For that reason, I've been reading a lot of YA [young adults], which I never have before. It's totally new to me.

I liked the idea of using this mega-star [Beyoncé ] to talk about all those things on the tiny scale of my life.