I feel like, as a person of color, I’ve always been kind of doing the work against the tide…I feel like change is coming, and change sometimes comes … - Jacqueline Woodson

I think what happened was the language settled in me much deeper than it settled into people who just can read something once and absorb what they absorb of it. I feel like what I was absorbing was not by any means superficial. And I think I was - from a really young age, I was reading like a writer. I was reading for this deep understanding of the literature not simply to hear the story but to understand how the author got the story on the page…

I realized the more specific the story, the more universal it becomes.

I want it to be there for the people who need it. I don’t want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.