Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.

I think that black fiction authors have to work very hard to avoid being typed as seeking only a black audience.

Richard John Neuhaus, in his well-known book The Naked Public Square, tells us that in America, the public square has become openly hostile to religion.

I find it hard to think of myself as selling books. I don't even have a Web site. I want to sit and write, not sell.

There is much depressing evidence that the religious voice is required to stay out of the public square only when it is pressed in a conservative cause.

Teasing out the way the world might look through another's eyes is what makes the creative process so fascinating and enjoyable.

Rumor is rarely more interesting than fact, but it is always more readily available.