In The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself, I examine how, throughout our history, from 1619 on, Black and BIPOC Americans have always been assumed to be guilty until proven innocent and sometimes there was no proving them innocent.
The more Maya explored those Deep Downs and learned to listen to her own voice, the more she understood that the best fortunes are the ones she writes for herself.
I believe there is an important place for serious dramas but why does culture and immigration always come with tears and seriousness? Often, we are the fiesta!
There seems like an awfully long distance between the past and future and yet, whether it is 1940 or 2040, the questions I continue to find most intriguing are timeless. Who are we in the worst of times? What does it mean to survive? And, What do we want our world to look like?
I didn’t set out to make the library so central in Another Dimension of Us, but as I was writing this book, the library became the one place where the characters felt safe — just like it was for me when I was like Tommy: a gay-but-definitely-not-out 15-year-old in the 80s.
If you told elementary-school me that one day, I’d have my own published books on those very library shelves, I would’ve been thrilled. It’d be a dream come true. But high-school me wouldn’t have believed you.