TAYARI JONES

I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now, where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.

Secret families are really the bedrock issue of Western literature.

I take mentoring very seriously and as a result I hardly get any work done during the school year.

The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature.

My first novel, 'Leaving Atlanta,' took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.

When it comes to memoir, we want to catch the author in a lie. When we read fiction, we want to catch the author telling the truth.

Adolescence is a modern construct and very American in so many ways.

I do have a sister - I have two sisters.

When I am writing a story it feels as real as the life I am experiencing off the page. It's an emotional illusion, I guess.

I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

I was kind of an invisible girl when I was young.

I don't mind expressing my opinions and speaking out against injustice. I would be doing this even if I wasn't a writer. I grew up in a household that believed in social justice. I have always understood myself as having an obligation to stand on the side of the silenced, the oppressed, and the mistreated.

I like straightforward names for my characters. When I get too symbolic with names or places, I start feeling like the characters and the story are less read, and I lose interest.

I think the NAACP isn't recognized enough for all of the work it does, especially in the field of law. They may have faded from view over the last couple of decades, but they are fighting the good fight.

Abandonment doesn't have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It's like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.

If there was ever a time to boil up some grits it is now.

I guess this is how love is when it comes undone. No matter how tight you knit the stitches, a sharp tug on a loose thread will transform your warm sweater into a mangled heap of yarn that you can't reuse or repair.

People say, That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn't kill you doesn't kill you. That's all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that's enough.

This is what I have come to know: Our past is never passed and there is no such thing as moving on. But there is this telling and there is such a thing as passing through.

Remember that the writing itself is good for you. If your story is so close to home that you are afraid to write it, it probably means you need to write it.

Nine Years Under is a sparkling debut--- brimming with love and bursting with life. Booker's Baltimore is equal parts The Wire and The Cosby show. She doesn't shrink from the realities of life in an inner city funeral home, but she is also a loving witness, documenting the big hearted community that takes care of its own. Told with compassion, wit, and good old fashioned story telling, Sheri Booker gives us unforgettable characters who will make you laugh right up until they break your heart.

I am neither religious nor superstitious, but there is something otherworldly about the space where two roads come together. The devil is said to set up shop there if you want to swap your soul for something more useful. If you believe that God can be bribed, it's also the hallowed ground to make sacrifices. In the literal sense, it's also a place to change direction, but once you've changed it, you're stuck until you come to another crossroads, and who knows how long that will be.

Dwelling on pain, spending too much time immersed in it, tasting its flavors, fingering its textures--this makes it only more potent.

When you write a novel, you make other people see your imaginary friends.

It's funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.