With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy.

People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...but it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special. I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way.

I write in a small office at home.

Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books?

I know I'm tired of thinking about what I should have done yesterday. I know I'm just tired. If I knew what to do with my life, how to fix it up, I would have done it a long time ago. You can't dig that? You think I want to live like I'm somebody's throwaway?

My dad was a janitor for U.S. Radium Corporation, and he stayed there for 37 years. So he didn't read.