The conscious imprinting that happens between, say, 10 and 16 is huge. I think it's so important for me as a writer to stay open to the memories of that period because they were so formative.
My family is big, complicated, and beautiful - and keeps me smiling and whole. It's so important to have family, whether it's biological family, good friends, foster families, or a group of aunties who are raising you. The idea of feeling isolated is scary to me - to walk through the world alone would be heartbreaking.
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 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.
The hardest part is telling one's story. Once the story is on the page, the rest will come.
The idea of feeling isolated is scary to me - to walk through the world alone would be heartbreaking.
I think, even though homophobia still exists, there is much more of a dialogue and a taboo around being homophobic.
My mom was a big fan of Al Green... James Brown we weren't allowed to listen to, so of course I knew James Brown.
Labeling is not the best way to get young people to deeply engage in reading.
I think, as a kid, turning on the television and seeing that everyone seemed to be wealthy and white made me feel like an outsider, lesser than. I was not wealthy. I was not white.
Sometimes, when I'm sitting at my desk for long hours and nothing's coming to me, I remember my fifth-grade teacher, the way her eyes lit up when she said, 'This is really good.'
My grandparents were wealthy; my mom was not. I would walk into these worlds of privilege and then walk back into this other world. My little brother is biracial. So race and economic class and sexuality - these were always issues that were a part of my life.
People who are living in economic struggle are more than their circumstances. They're majestic and creative and beautiful.
I feel like I'm a New Yorker to the bone. But there is a lot of the South in me. I know there is a lot of the South in my mannerisms. There's a lot of the South in my expectations of other people and how people treat each other. There's a lot of the South in the way I speak, but it could never be home.
In the family, writing wasn't anything anyone understood - being a writer in the real world? How could it be? We didn't have those mirrors.
I love playing with form. I love playing with sounds... I love music, and I love writing that has a musicality to it.
A 10-year-old knows a lot. If you think she or he isn't noticing the world around them, you're missing a lot.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
For my family, 'black-ish' is the reward on a Thursday evening - a day after the show officially airs, when it's finally available to be streamed.
Told a lot of stories as a child. Not 'Once upon a time' stories but, basically, outright lies. I loved lying and getting away with it!