How do you even choose what to mend when so much has already been destroyed? How could she think, she asked herself, that she could revive or save an… - Edwidge Danticat

“No one will ever love you more than you love your pain,” he had replied, his words ringing even louder in the dark. (p154)

That’s what writing can do in whatever form it comes to us. It allows us to see these larger events in a personal way. It goes back even to the slave narratives, where it’s stressed on the cover of these books, “Written by Herself” or “by Himself,” where people need to testify to their own experience. What’s happened has brought new eyes to Haitian literature, to Haitian art, to Haitian music. Hopefully that’ll be something that will continue even when we’re not in the news.

Create Dangerously was about giving myself permission. There are people who come into writing emboldened and formed. I wasn't like that. I had to give myself permission. People asked me, "Well, what do you know of Haiti? What do you know of America?" I learned to give myself permission, that this is a worthwhile endeavor, that I would fail sometimes, it would work sometimes, but like Maya Angelou says, that place had been earned for me. All I had to do was claim it.