It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as 'other.'

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.

It's impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees. Official census records, used by so many genealogy enthusiasts to piece together their families' pasts, don't include our non-European ancestors.

American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous.

I was raised in Mississippi, in a family and a community that identified as black, and I have the stories and the experiences to go with it. One of my great-great grandfathers was killed by a gang of white Prohibition patrollers.

I love Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor. I read a lot of American writers.