In terms of music, each novel is different but I usually find my way into an era through the music. In this novel the New People, I listened to a lot…

- Danzy Senna

I definitely feel like when I write a book it's not my job to police or guide the readers. The book and the characters don't belong to me anymore. If…

- Danzy Senna

I was influenced growing up by everything from Harlequin romances to Fedor Dostoyevsky and Albert Camus, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and later Lydi…

- Danzy Senna

I didn't read about it for school. It was just for myself. I was interested in cults in general but Jonestown was the most interesting of all the cul…

- Danzy Senna

Writing New People I was thinking a lot about the era that I came of age - the 90's. Brooklyn, in particular, this moment when I lived there. The sen…

- Danzy Senna

I'm not trying to be coy, but I think everyone notices these things like skin color but some people are more aware that they are noticing them than o…

- Danzy Senna

I find myself speaking through the other characters, putting ideas in their voices and heads. Writing almost becomes a splitting of myself into multi…

- Danzy Senna

I wrote the first draft of the New People quickly but it had been percolating a lot longer. It's a hard question to answer because I'd been working o…

- Danzy Senna

It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, ‘I want to go home.’ But then you come home, and of course it’s not the…

- Danzy Senna