It's hard to tell what people will do with the word and how they'll be circulating it but I think the storytellers and the stories themselves will always be there.

I think it's hard for an outsider to capture the flavor of a community and all its nuances, so ultimately Haitian-Americans need to start sharing intimate accounts of their stories.

People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti.

I very much love a physical book myself. I think people who have had this experience of also seeing a book come together, from sitting down and writing the first word, to holding the binding in your hand, we have a deeper sentimental attachment to it than others might.

We've had fiction from the time of cave drawings. I think fiction, storytelling, and narrative in general will always exist in some form.

People often think of Haiti as a place where you're not supposed to have any joy. I wanted to show that this is a place with joy.

I think all artists are looking for a subject or are sometimes unsure of their subject, but immigrant artists bring another culture to that and they bring also the place where the original culture meets the new culture.

I think novels just really show us the deepest parts of people's hearts, and you cannot walk away anymore and say, "I don't know."

When people think about this religion, they'll say "voodoo" this and "voodoo" that in the way the Hollywood movies show it: the sticking of pins in dolls. It's very different than Vodou - which is a religion that comes to Haiti from our ancestors in Africa. I want to differentiate it from the stereotypical, sensationalized view that we see of the religion.