I was never threatened…I never knew anyone who was lynched. But there was subtle racism every day of my life. You could not speak to a white man unle… - Ernest J. Gaines

When people hear stories, they identify more closely with the characters. When I read aloud, people always come up to me and say, “I understand it much better now that I’ve heard you read it. I can hear the characters’ voices much clearer…”

In dialogue, I’m dealing with the sounds I’ve heard. One of the reasons I often write from first person or multiple points of view is to hear the voices of different characters. Omniscient narration becomes a problem because, for me, the omniscient is my own voice narrating the story and then bringing in characters for dialogue.

All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.