Ayana Mathis Quotes
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There's a stereotype that to be a strong black woman is to be strong about being black.
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My book has a pre - civil rights setting with a post - civil rights sensibility. I believe less and less that there is something called "The Black Experience," though undoubtedly there was one once.
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If there had never been the Great Migration there would never have been jazz, there would never have been Michelle Obama. A lot of amazing black people exist in this country because of the Great Migration. That's nation-building.
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Half of what's wrong with people today is that they ain't got no place to go that makes them peaceful.
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One of the things that writers worry about is finding a voice. I don't think it's a thing that you find so much as it is something that comes to you, or that presents itself.
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I try to find the beauty in things. On dark days, I sit in my armchair looking at clouds and I am awed at how rain is made.
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I think being consistent is really important. In the arts there's a misconception that you sit around waiting for the muse to come, and that it's all really mystical and mysterious. In reality, sometimes you have to fake it till you make it.
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I couldn't imagine a book with many characters in it and one of them not being gay. It would have felt like a glaring and problematic omission for me. But I also wanted to write that character as a person, not just a gay person.
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The ways in which theological constructs pose questions about what it is to be a human being on this earth are deeply elegant and deeply interesting to me. I may not always agree with the answers religion offers, but I take great interest in the questions it poses.
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I think that if you just write your characters you end up with something that people can access.