interview by jake stone

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À la “Being John Malkovich”, whose brain do you want a secret door into?
Carl Sagan’s. Or me at nine.

A scent that makes you think of your childhood. 
Magnolia blossoms, the blue flame of a furnace, and water from a hose.

Aliens have come to Earth. How do you greet them?  
With terror and grace.

Favorite comic book character.
I wish it didn’t always return back to Batman. But it does.

If your writing was a color it would be ___
3 o’clock afternoon light falling through a white curtain. 10 in the morning through a yellow bedsheet on the line. The sea watched from a cliff. The shades of blue in the sky between dusk and night.

Life’s greatest unsolved mystery.
The triangle between the heart, the brain, & the gut. And R. Kelly.

Something you think kids are better at than adults.
Knowing when they’re wrong and looking for bugs. And running fast as they can.

The best thing to eat in New Orleans.
Oh shit. Fer real? Cafe du Monde beignets, shrimp poboys from Verdi Mart, iced coffee everywhere, District Donuts’ vietnamese iced coffee donut or/and brown butter & pecan donut, and dinner at my folks’.

There needs to be more books written about ___
12 year old Black boys just being, especially in sci-fi settings, and 12 year old Black girls just being, especially in every setting.

Things you would bury in a time capsule.
Any music I’ve made
My third grade composition book
E.T.
The photographs, all the photographs
The craspedia and wedding ring of my marriage
The three shoeboxes of memories on my bookshelf
The stuffed Snoopy from my childhood
Maniac McGee & To Kill A Mockingbird
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

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