Remember that the writing itself is good for you. If your story is so close to home that you are afraid to write it, it probably means you need to write it.

If there was ever a time to boil up some grits it is now.

I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now, where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.

When you write a novel, you make other people see your imaginary friends.

I take mentoring very seriously and as a result I hardly get any work done during the school year.

This is what I have come to know: Our past is never passed and there is no such thing as moving on. But there is this telling and there is such a thing as passing through.

When it comes to memoir, we want to catch the author in a lie. When we read fiction, we want to catch the author telling the truth.

Abandonment doesn't have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It's like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.

My first novel, Leaving Atlanta, took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.

It's funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.

When I am writing a story it feels as real as the life I am experiencing off the page. It's an emotional illusion, I guess.

Empowered Women 101: A confident woman doesn't have to talk a man into loving her. He either loves her completely, not enough or not at all. Regardless, she doesn't settle for less than she deserves.

Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky

Sometimes WRONG is worth the FUNNY!

when you speak of other people's marriages, you are, of course, saying something about your own.

His blood is black and boiling hot, he gurgles ghastly groans. He'll cook you in his dinner pot, your skin, your flesh, your bones.

Study hard, practice hard, play ferociously.

I don't think about being a celebrity.

I enjoy getting dressed as a Barbie doll.

Fuel conservation is as important as fuel production.