When I Became My Masked Identity I

You Were At The Age Where You Could Fall In Love With A Girl Over An Expression, Over A Gesture. That's What Happened With Your Girlfriend, Paloma- She Stooped To Pick Up Her Purse And Your Heart Flew Out Of You.

I Think Men Spend So Much Time Passing For Being Men. There's A Sense Among Many Writers Of Color That The Most Invisible Figure That Was Sitting Between All Of Us Was The Nerd. But It Was The Thing We Weren't Saying, That People Were Afraid To Say, Like, "yo, What We Do Is Nerdy By Definition."

When I Was Thinking About These Women Characters, No Matter How Bad A Person I Am - A Bad Writer, My Limitations, My Sexism, You Know - The Thought Was, It Would Be Useful As A Writer To Try To Create A Template For All The Male Writers, Especially Dominican Male Writers, Especially Males Of Color, Of How A Writer Can Use Seeing To Create More Nuanced Representations Of Women.

When People Are Always Telling You That You Have To Have A Lot Of Women, Women Are Very Important, There's A Chance That You Might Actually Begin To Observe Them On A More Fundamental Level. Then You Get So Much Focus That One Day You Might Actually See. Dominican Men Are Told To Look At Women All The Time, But They're Definitely Not Told To See Them.

I Think One Of The Paradoxes Of Writing Fiction Is When People Enjoy It, They Want It To Be Real. So They Look For Connections.