Jacqueline Woodson

“I'm usually working either on a picture book and a young adult book, or a middle grade book and a young adult book. When I get bored with one, I move to the other, and then I go back.”

“Each book I write is a shout into the silence and a prayer and a plea for change.”

“I think there is much more queer visibility than there was when I was a kid. There is marriage, more trans visibility, and many more celebrities who are open about the sexuality. This was so...”

“Every time you revisit a book, you get something else out of it.”

“I rewrite a lot until I get the rhythm and story right on the page.”

“I think there is such a richness to the South and a lushness and a way of life.”

“If you have no road map, you have to create your own.”

“I think it's so important that, if I'm writing about the real world, I stay true to it. I think that kids do compartmentalize, and they're hopefully able to see it from a safe place of their...”

“I never know, when I start writing a story, what's going to happen, or how it will all get sorted out.”

“I can't write about nice, easy topics because that won't change the world. And I do want to change the world - one reader at a time.”

“My mom was very strict. And we were very religious. So I knew that I was not allowed to do the wrong thing. And I knew that I had a home I could run to. And I had a mom.”

“I love how much love there is in the world of young adult and children's literature.”

“In young adult novels and children's books, you stay in moment. The story goes through a school year or a weekend. You never get a sense of a future self because the young person has not liv...”