Years ago, I met my true love here. I was six, he was six. Now I’m fifteen, and so is he. He waits for me on these chilly winter mornings. His lips are cold, they melt when they touch mine.

"It feels like a play." Of all the notes I got in the beginning of my screenwriting master’s program, this one hurt the most.

For years, the rich and the powerful have been the unseen gatekeepers of art and culture, using the concept of “exposure” as an exploitative currency. And for the first time in human history, that paradigm has changed.

It's okay to take the time to find and seek—both yourself and the story you hope to tell.

I didn’t become a full-time writer because it would support me financially—I did it so I could finally feel alive.

I suddenly found myself getting more feedback than I could handle. Seven voices all telling me different things. Seven voices full of conviction, where I had none. I tried to please everyone. Spoiler alert: I failed.

After I finished a draft, I emerged from my cocoon of grief, wiped the ice chips off my body, and wasn’t prone to crying in the middle of the street anymore. I left it all on the page.

The “in-between” can be a lonely place—growing up Black in the capital of the Confederacy can make it even lonelier.

I don't often have hot takes, but when I do, it’s that “The Writing Process” poster in my fifth-grade classroom ruined me.

I have no reason to be scared of anything, ever. 2018 could have been a death punch to me as a comedian. That kind of beating is almost unheard of as a stand-up comic. But I proved to myself that I can rise up to the biggest occasions.

If you’re trying to hit the zeitgeist, you’re gonna miss and be too late. Authenticity is timeless ...

I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to be the next ‘so-and-so’ anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still on my grind—I still bleed this shit. But I’m just ... enjoying the ride.

It’s all storytelling, be it a product or a film or a TV show. Combining art and business is a tale as old as time.

And all of this is happening at a time when the culture is redefining women—tossing aside Harriet and Lucy for Maude and Mary Tyler Moore—and deciding that female student-athletes should have access to the same benefits as the guys (with the passage of Title IX).

Every creative knows that feeling. We also know it's just part of the business. An occupational hazard. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. But for some, that one little bee sting feels more like a thousand angry hornets.