Interviews

So many stories are written for/about male heroes with a traditional, predictable plot. That’s not to say that I didn’t and don’t hope other people would read and be interested in these stories, but I wrote them first for myself.

You could write about this weird thing, and people who like to read will be down to find out about this different world. It’s a very different situation in a nightclub or a theater.

Writing about illness is a way to push back against all the pathologizing and dismissiveness. It allowed me to be in charge of my own narrative.

It’s now my favorite way to write—in community. There’s something safe about it, you feel held.

I wanted to write about faith in a way that people who are not Christian, or do not understand that worldview, could read and have a more nuanced approach to faith.

My job as a write is to first witness, and then record. It would be an injustice to these poems if they were not written from a place of vulnerability and truth.

Subconsciously, when writing my own work, I want to make sure that people understand how these characters became who they are.

The themes in the book subsequently shaped the story’s chronology and created a different style of graphic storytelling, connecting my family’s history with my community work and service.

My hope is that as a society we can emphasize compassion over stigma and treatment over punishment.

You write a book to get over something. You read a book to get into it.

We are going to need nature more than ever before. We also need to continue being kind to each other and to uplift other writers whenever we can.

. . . the reader animates you. And yet you’re also constrained in some way by that relationship that you form with the audience.