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" You can make something out of every unfinished story and every rejection if you work at it. "

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" What's demanded from us black creatives is both a blessing and a curse, because it pushes you to be your absolute best. You cannot be anything less. "

" I am a firm believer that the craziest stories that have been told and are being told are in anime. They have character arcs that go over, like, 400 episodes, like a 400-episode character arc. "

" It's not about creating something that eight billion people would like. It's about creating something and being able to reach the maybe, like, one million people that would like it a lot. "

" For readers of color, and especially black readers, black girls, I just want them to feel seen. And not just seen - I want them to feel epic and know that they are epic. "

" I've been writing stories all my life. My very first story had two little black girls riding horses. They were both me, too, so that's how into me I was. "

" Every first draft sucks, so when you have your favorite novel, and you're like, 'Wow, this is a masterpiece,' and then you write your first draft, and you're like, 'This is really bad,' and then you're like 'I can't do this because this is nowhere close.' When, in reality, the book you loved so much started out just as crappy. "

" I had a lot of different reasons for writing the book, but at its core was the desire to write for black teenage girls growing up reading books they were absent from. That was my experience as a child. 'Children of Blood and Bone' is a chance to address that. To say you are seen. "

" My freshman year of college, 'The Hunger Games' movie adaptation came out, and I was really excited about it. This was maybe 2011. I loved it, but there was a lot of hateful backlash against the black characters in the film. "

" You don't realise how cool your culture is until you get out of that phase of trying to fit in. "

" If I went to any other college, I probably would have been pre-med. But I felt like I had freedom to do what I wanted to do at Harvard. "

" With the Internet, there are so many ways to connect with other writers who will be some of your best friends and best sources of support for your entire life. "

" We like epic stories, we like adventure, we like epic fights, so if you can mix a great story that can also really teach someone about a different experience, you have the potential to really help people. "

" With a fantasy world, it's like, this is my world. I literally made it. So if I tell you something, you do have to sit back and observe more. You need to sit back and listen more to understand what is going on or what's happening in the world. And I think there's a lot of power in that. "

" Any person that you would want to watch your movie or see your show or read your book, there's a million other things that they could be watching or reading or doing. "

" There's so much talk of representation in politics and entertainment - it's everywhere - but I didn't realize representation was important until really my senior year of high school. "

" Everyone has a story that they read when they were younger that influenced them. "

" I didn't say I have to be a writer, but I did say that I needed to publish at least one book. "

" The power of fantasy is that you can make people understand the deeper realities of our world in a way that they wouldn't normally be able to because of all the things in our world that closes them off. "

" At every writers' conference, you have the opportunity to hear from best-selling authors, top literary agents, and excellent editors who will demystify the publishing industry and give you great advice, no matter where you are in your writing career or what you're currently struggling with. "

" Imagination is a funny thing - we sometimes need to see something before we can truly picture it. "

" My very first story, I was around 5, and I really just wrote myself. When I was 5, I loved myself so much I gave myself a twin named Tomi. Everything started out fine. But then I didn't write another black character until I was 18. "

" I want a little black girl to pick up my book one day and see herself as the star. I want her to know that she's beautiful, and she matters, and she can have a crazy, magical adventure even if an ignorant part of the world tells her she can never be Hermione Granger. "

" In my perfect world, we'd have one black girl fantasy book every month. We need them, and we need fantasy stories about black boys as well. "

" You need a community to succeed. In the back of every book is an acknowledgments page full of all the people it took to get that writer to the book you're holding. "

" Part of the reason everyone is freaking out over 'Black Panther' is because we've never seen it. We have two thousand years of stories, and we've never seen it. "

" The knowledge and insights you can get in just one day at a writers' conference make it worth the trip. "

" In terms of people who want to be writers, I wish more people knew how much work it was. "

" I will always be my hardest critic. Nobody else will ever be able to come at something I do harder than I come at myself. "

" Children of color need a mirror to see themselves in. And then people who don't have that experience, they need a window. They need a really personalized way to see what people who are different from them are going through. "

" The things I want to do mostly involve writing. "