The best source for finding an agent is called Literary Agents of North America. It's a complete list of agents, not only by name and address, but by type of book they represent and by what their submission criteria are.

These events are swirling around them. In the white community, people felt like they had no control over their neighborhoods, their destiny. In the black community, centuries of government and economic forces were pushing on them. I went in with a kind of arrogance, maybe, that came from living in a very intellectual family, and I left knowing that there was a lot about the way people lived that I didn't know about.

People have less privacy and are crammed together in cities, but in the wide open spaces they secretly keep tabs on each other a lot more

I'm a grandmother, and a mighty proud one.

Never underestimate a man's ability to underestimate a woman.

The hope for a messiah puts too much on that one person. And you think that absolves you of personal responsibility and you don't have to act because that person will do it for you.

Around the time I turned 30, I wanted to publish a novel