Growing up as a product of the black civil-rights movement, I had a lot of different models for black weirdness, whether it's Richard Pryor or James Baldwin or Jimmy Walker.

Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel.

I started writing in the '90s, so I was free to just have an eccentric career and not conform to some idea of what a black writer has to do. I didn't have the burden of representation.

For me, choosing between fiction and nonfiction is really only about picking the right tool for the job.

I'm a character and a sports entertainer and a wrestler, but I'm also a father and a husband and a provider.

Women's tennis? I think it stinks. They hit the ball back and forth, have a lot of nice volleys, and you can see some pretty legs. But it's night and day compared to men's tennis.

I've met some of the most interesting, dimensional, and kind people of my life in that subculture and around the sport. And it seems to me that boxing is one of those structures that is designed to promote harmony. I think that it is a stove that contains that fire in us and makes it safe and useful.

Fighting is a very independent thing, and it's not a team sport, and it's not the NFL, you know, because we don't have to look the same.