Of course, I can't separate my queerness from my brownness - if anything, my queerness amplifies my brownness, and vice versa - but I spent so much of my early twenties trying to erase my differences, often without awareness of what I was doing.

I always work with text orally in the writing process, saying passages aloud to measure flow.

I do use art as a site of protest, particularly in relation to dominant narratives.

I don't yet know what style will be required for my next novel, but my sense is that each book will involve a new relationship to language.

If anything, I have witnessed the ways my art travels, or is rendered more accessible, when sanctioned by or connected to white artists.

As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.

Music is my first love, where my artistic journey began.