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" I'm from an upper-middle class background. But because there was no one of my race where I grew up, I was very isolated. I felt different from everybody else. "

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" Every writer should be able to write anything if you do the research and you're sensitive enough to ask the questions. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Write

Questions

Enough

" I remember watching episodes of 'The Sopranos' and being filled with dread knowing what was coming or anticipating what was coming. I don't think that that's always a bad thing. I think sometimes the audience needs a little catharsis held away from them. "

" Humans are powerless, and even in our exercise of free will, either the Universe is gonna get down with your plan, or it isn't. "

" When it comes to power as it functions between humans, it all comes down to desire. If you know what someone wants, you can control them. It is as simple as that. And the reverse is also true: If you have control over your own desires, no one will ever own you. As humans, we are plagued with desire - it consumes us, it fuels us, it destroys us. "

" It... does... not... have... to... be... pointed out all the time. Like, 'Isn't it great that you're black, and you're a woman?' Isn't it great that the show's good? I would just love for it not to be a thing - for it just to be, like, super norm. "

" It was not something that ever occurred to me, to be able to be in TV. I was very lucky. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Lucky

" When I first arrived in Los Angeles from New York in 2004 to try to break into television, I couldn't believe how segregated it was - how many neighborhoods were nearly all-white or all-black or -Asian or -Latino. "

" When I was a little girl, my imagination was what helped me deal with some sort of negative elements in my childhood. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Imagination

Girl

" The only black folks in town when I was growing up were me and my cousins and one other family. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Family

Black

" Any underrepresented audience loves to see themselves on TV, but what's more important is that we're writing about universal themes - good versus evil, can you change yourself? These themes resonate for everyone. "

" I love Pusha T and The Clipse. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Love

I Love

" What I'm about to say won't be popular, but it's true: If being a television showrunner is the job you want, and you are a woman, I would not suggest you have children. The reality is that you just cannot do both well. "

" Not many people get to create a television show that actually makes it on the air. "

" I am tired of people using 'diverse' to mean 'of color.' That's not what that word means. 'Diversity' means people of all different races, all together - like a New York City subway. "

" I first became a showrunner at 36 years old. I had no experience doing this job, which is as complicated and multi-faceted as anything I'd ever tried. "

" There are so many different things that create an alchemy of success. Just like there are so many different things that create an alchemy of a failure. "

" I'd say it's far more challenging to be female and be a showrunner. People are not surprised to see a black person running this show, but the female aspect is the thing that I get asked about. "

" I want to tell more stories about lying, dual lives, self-deception - those are my favorites. "

" My experience as a black woman in the industry is simply that often I was the only one in the room. Often I would be the only woman and the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several women but the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several people of color, but the only woman. "

" I always ask the actors, 'What have you never done before?' "

" There are some aspects of the story of 'Power' that clearly are about race in the sense that any one of us now who's black and was raised in this country was raised with a lie, which is, 'You can never be president.' That's not true. "

" I think as long as I can tell you a story about people that you understand, it doesn't matter if you don't like what they do; you understand why they did it. "

" When people watch 'Power' and they find out the showrunner is black, it's not surprising. What is surprising is that I am a woman and my background is not particularly urban. "

" In college, I didn't know whether to hang out with the black kids or the white kids, and then I found the theatre kids, and I was like, 'Oh, it doesn't matter.' We were all weird and listening to Morrissey and wearing Doc Martens so that was my tribe. "

" The baseline character in a lot of Western literature is a man. So we, as women, do a lot of suspending of our disbelief to experience a novel or a play or a movie through that male character. "

" If you are other, you don't think twice about hiring people who are other. "

" Obviously I'm not from 50's background - I'm from Westport, Connecticut, which is as far away from his background as you can get, right? Growing up in Westport, for a long time I was the only black person living there for miles. "

" Around me, there's always music playing. It just calms me down; it soothes me. It helps me write. It helps me with my mood. "

" I had to figure out that finding my place was not about race but about creativity, and connecting with other artists helped me find my voice. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Place

Finding

" My dad was very, very invested in image. He felt that as a black person, the thing you could control was how did you look, how did you dress, how did you sound, how did you smell, how did you act. All of that stuff that you could control would absolutely have a strong impact on your access. "