writing is an art but it’s work. If you don’t value your work, who will? (2021) - Rita Williams-Garcia

(What do you like to tell students when you talk to them?) RWG: I think what I enjoy most about going to schools is showing kids who I am. I’m still just kind of a big, silly kid, and I can’t hide it. I want children to see that they don’t have to let go of who they are, and I want them to understand that it’s okay to be goofy, to let go of the cool stuff. The main thing is that they be themselves and celebrate themselves, and let people know them as they truly are. (2015)

"Enough people in the world trying to silence us. Girl, you better speak up.” (p238)

(In a note included with advance editions of the book, referring to slavery and its legacies, you wrote, “At no other time in our nation’s history have readers sought out more this examination and conversation.” Why do you think now is a particularly important moment for this reflection?) RWG: I’ve revised this answer 10 times. I have been watching the trial of the police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd. I have become that boy who asked, “Why do they hate us?” And then I have my answer and I get angry. I’m a person in my 60s who sees the present as a cycle. We fight for rights because we experience inequities and brutalities, we get rights, we move forward, and then we repeat the cycle. What is happening—the murder of and violence against people of color, the suppression of rights, the unequal access to health care—is not new. It’s part of the cycle. We need to talk openly about what is happening to people because of their race, ethnicity and gender, because the cycle continues. We see it happening before our eyes daily. Each and every one of us has to become the conscience of this country by what we say and do. People are being killed or brutalized on the basis of simply existing. We are not too far from our enslaved ancestors. We have to speak up and act up when the unconscionable is normalized. But we have to talk before there can be any reparations. We have to be unafraid to have uncomfortable conversations with an emphasis on listening. (2021)