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Growing up in the 60s, you have that pressure of "Am I a black writer, am I black enough?" and that kind of thing.

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And I posed that question to Raymond Andrews when I first met him.

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I was in graduate school and he was a visiting writer.

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And so I said to him, "I'm really worried that my work isn't black enough."

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And he looked at me and he said, "You can't write for your mama."

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I said, "What?"

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He said, "You can't write for your mama."

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Meaning you can't write for other people's expectations.

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If you're a literary writer, you have to write your stories.