If You Start Thinking About Being Likable

I Am Drawn, As A Reader, To Detail-drenched Stories About Human Lives Affected As Much By The Internal As By The External, The Kind Of Fiction That Jane Smiley Nicely Describes As 'first And Foremost About How Individuals Fit, Or Don't Fit, Into Their Social Worlds.'

In America, Racism Exists But Racists Are All Gone. Racists Belong To The Past. Racists Are The Thin-lipped Mean White People In The Movies About The Civil Rights Era. Here's The Thing: The Manifestation Of Racism Has Changed But The Language Has Not. So If You Haven't Lynched Somebody Then You Can't Be Called A Racist. If You're Not A Bloodsucking Monster, Then You Can't Be Called A Racist. Somebody Has To Be Able To Say That Racists Are Not Monsters.

Show A People As One Thing, Only One Thing, Over And Over Again, And That Is What They Become.

To Choose To Write Is To Reject Silence.

I Think Human Beings Exist In A Social World. I Write Realistic Fiction, And So It Isn't That Surprising That The Social Realities Of Their Existence Would Be Part Of The Story.