Being gay immediately placed me outside the values of the society I was growing up in. Apartheid was a very patriarchal system, so its assumptions seemed foreign to me from the outset. I've always had the advantage of alienation.

I'm fascinated by how much has changed from one generation to another. There are young people growing up now for whom apartheid is just a distant memory and the idea of military service is an abstract notion.

There aren't a lot of 'Aha!' moments in writing.

Perhaps cliche is nothing more than the weight of the past pinning down your mind. In this sense, imaginative freedom is a way of finding the future, though it isn't so easy to do.

Everyone in my family still lives in Kalamazoo.

I was always an outcast, even in my family.

I'm most interested in public service. I think that's something that I got from being part of my family, which is such an honor.

I'd love to have more kids. I'm one of four, and I've always dreamed of having a huge family. I've loved every second of having Sophia. It's been just the most amazing time of my life. I'd love more of it.