Despite the obstacles of race and class, I was always taught that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to. African-American writers, for me, were a beacon, a guiding force.

Life can be unsettling. Writers have always gravitated to conflict, unhappiness and disturbing themes. We as readers would get bored pretty quickly if stories were about all the pleasant things in life. Since we know our troubles are always coming we want to see in our fiction examples of how others have dealt with them.

The writer writes about what happened in order to make it make sense, to put it in perspective, to turn it into art and art becomes the vehicle on which we ride out the truth of our experiences.

Socially and politically, we seem to be living in dire times, worse times than in the past. But there were far worse horrors in our past. The writer's role is to be a truth sayer. I sincerely believe that each society, each country lives by a particular fantasy vision, a fantasy vision of itself. The truth of how they live is hardly ever faced.