Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.

The more specific we are, the more universal something can become. Life is in the details. If you generalize, it doesn't resonate. The specificity of it is what resonates.

I think 'Miracle's Boys' made more people aware of my work.

We, as adults, are the gatekeepers, and we have to check our own fears at the door because we want our children to be smarter than we are. We want them to be more fully human than we are.

The Great Migration can get forgotten if we don't pay attention or bear witness to it. It's part of my personal history and the history of millions of African Americans who left those oppressive conditions for better lives in the North. It's important to put that on the page.

The idea of feeling isolated is scary to me - to walk through the world alone would be heartbreaking.

Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who have been historically absent in literature.

I always say I write because I have questions, not because I have answers. It's true that you begin the conversation - that's the role of the artist. But it's not my job to tell us what to do next. I wish I had those tools.

People want to know and understand each other across lines of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability.