“I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, …” — Jacqueline Woodson

When I'm feeling frustrated with a story, I have faith that it's going to come. Also, when I first started writing, I wanted to write the stories that were not in my childhood, to represent people who hadn't historically been represented in literature.

By the time I was in fifth grade, I was dreaming of the Pulitzer Prize.

I write for whoever needs to read it.

The epistolary form is one of the hardest to write. It's so hard to show something that's bigger in a letter. Plus, you have to have the balance of how many letters are going to work to tell the story and how few are going to make it fall apart.