Where I would usually backspace, I stop and say, "You know what? This is important, that I say how I feel and don't sugarcoat it, and don't avoid it."

I wanted [the book 'There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé?'] to be colorful. I wanted it to be evocative. I wanted a figure of a black woman that the reader has to confront.

Аrt movements are always linked to some kind of turmoil.

We kind of have to rewrite our own stories and our own ways of being free.

I try to convey what it feels like and sounds like and smells like and looks like inside of my particular skin, to move through the world as a black American woman in her mid-twenties.

Mickalene [Thomas] is an artist that I have admired for a long time. So much of her work inspires me - I spend time looking at her work when I'm writing. I feel like we're working toward the same themes, and I see our work in conversation, whether we know it or not.

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.