Feminism is a choice, and if a woman does not want to be a feminist, that is her right, but it is still my responsibility to fight for her rights. I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn't make certain choices for ourselves. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.

I wrote myself back together. I wrote myself toward a stronger version of myself . . . Through writing and feminism, I also found that if I was a little bit brave, another woman might hear me and see me and recognize that none of us are the nothing the world tries to tell us we are.

What is it like to be connected to someone you can never get away from, for better or worse? I love trying to answer that question.

Maybe I'm a bad feminist, but I am deeply committed to the issues important to the feminist movement. I have strong opinions about misogyny, institutional sexism that consistently places women at a disadvantage, the inequity in pay, the cult of beauty and thinness, the repeated attacks on reproductive freedom, violence against women, and on and on. I am as committed to fighting fiercely for equality as I am committed to disrupting the notion that there is an essential feminism.

Writing, at its best and truest, can offer solace and salvation for both readers and writers.

Most of the time, writing is a lot of fun, and not a small amount of self-medication.

The designation is useful and necessary and sometimes limiting but it is only limiting to people who think, for example, that African-American literature couldn't possibly be something they could be interested in or relate to. They have limited imaginations, which is sad.