The truths are universal: Every kid knows fear. Every kid knows family and friendship. Loss, love, laughter. Everything else is just detail.

Having a superpower has nothing to do with the ability to fly or jump, or superhuman strength. The truest superpowers are the ones we all possess: willpower, integrity, and most importantly, courage.

I wanted to be a poet. I fell in love with poetry around eight years old, but not through literature. Instead, it came through hip-hop lyrics and my obsession with reading liner notes. Queen Latifah's 'Black Reign' is the album that stands out the most.

Queen Latifah was writing poetry. Maybe Latifah's 'Ladies First' and Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman' are the same thing, a generation apart.

Poetry has the ability to create entire moments with just a few choice words. The spacing and line breaks create rhythm, a helpful musicality, a natural flow. The separate stanzas aid in perpetuating a kind of incremental reading, one small chunk at a time.

My relationship to comics isn't nearly as strong as some people's. Ha! I mean, I grew up with a comic book fanatic. My older brother was, and still is, obsessed. And I was obsessed with the fact that he was obsessed, because I was obsessed with him. But not necessarily with comics themselves.

The truth of the matter is that chess is not the game of life because life does not ever happen the way you strategize and plan.

I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove. Hearing that the canon can't be diversified, there's no room for more brown faces - that fueled my fire.