It Took Me Sixteen Years To Write.

You Can't Regret The Life You Didn't Lead.

Just The Fact That You Get To Live And Breathe And Interact With The World - That's Pretty Marvelous.

I Was Part Of That Group Of Kids Growing Up In The '80s Under The Reagan Regime, What I Used To Call 'living In The Shadow Of Dr. Manhattan,' Where We Would Have Dreams All The Time That New York City Was Being Destroyed, And That That Wall Of Light And Destruction Was Rolling Out And Would Just Devour Our Neighborhood.

As For My Slowness As A Writer - That's Been A Struggle, No Question. We Live In A Culture That Values And Rewards Machine-speed Productivity. Even The Arts Are Expected To Conform To The Taylor Model Of Productivity.

New Jersey For Me Is So Alive With History. It's Old, Dynamic, African-american, Latino.