In grad school, a friend and I gave ourselves the task of writing poems in the voice of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga after they did the collaboration for "Telephone." I just kind of kept going. That was quite a while ago - Beyoncé meant something very different then than she does now.

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

Sometimes I feel as though I'm trying to take a hit for the team so that other people then can move forward. I'm like, "Look, I just laid out all of my stuff, so what's the worst that can happen?".

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

I guess the only thing I'd say is it ['There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé?'] shouldn't be read as "Beyoncé is not beautiful."

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