Anger Is A Wasted Emotion.

People Aren't Really Aware Of What's Happening In Other Places.

I'm Just Melancholy By Nature, And A Lot Of That Gets Into My Writing.

My Models Were Oral, Were Storytellers. Like My Grandmothers And My Aunts. It's True, A Lot Of People In My Life Were Not Literate In A Formal Sense, But They Were Storytellers. So I Had This Experience Of Just Watching Somebody Spin A Tale Off The Top Of Her Head. I Loved That.

The Whole History Between Haiti And The Dominican Republic Is Complicated. We Share The Island Of Hispaniola, And Haiti Occupied The Dominican Republic For Twenty-two Years After 1804 For Fear That The French And Spanish Would Come Back And Reinstitute Slavery. So We Have This Unique Situation Of Being Two Independent Nations On The Same Island, But With Each Community Having Its Own Grievance.

The Best Moment In Writing Any Book Is When You Just Can't Wait To Get Back To The Writing, When You Can't Wait To Re-enter That Fictional Place, When Your Fictional Town Feels Even More Real Than The Town Where You Actually Live.