My dream has always been to suspend myself in space when I write, and lying horizontal in bed is the closest to doing that.

I really like science because it seems to be that place where you get the big picture, everything connects.

We will live with racism for ever. But senses of self, senses of belonging, senses of us and of others? Those are up for grabs.

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design.

Music forecasts the past, recalls the future. Now and then the difference falls away, and in one simple gift of circling sound, the ear solves the scrambled cryptogram. One abiding rhythm, present and always, and you're free. But a few measures more, and the cloak of time closes back around you.

Out of grad school, I worked as a tech writer for a while before going into computer coding for a living.

For me, university was just awful because it was closing one door after the other of all these candy shops of professional possibilities.