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 think that we need to make it our goal to define freedom for ourselves.

So much of the world and the systems that we live within are made to keep us from feeling like we're free. The way that black women in American came to be is just diametrically opposed to being free.

After a while, being so honest and so vulnerable on the page ends up affecting my own kind of self possession in the world, because I am not afraid of myself and my own thoughts. I think so much of being a woman, of being a social being, of being polite, is quieting those thoughts. There's so much we try not to say as we go through the day. There's a lot of tempering and self-editing. It is a relief to make writing that space where I don't need to do that.

There's something about us using the word fascism and thinking about, "What is it? What does it mean, and what are the tenets of it?" I've been thinking a lot about folks denying what has happened in history, or just not acknowledging it. I think there's something that's fascist, and something that I think we could probably learn from, in terms of the energy in the world right now.

So much of my writing process is trying to eliminate any kind of shame or fear of the thoughts that I'm having.

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