Dwayne McDuffie was one of my favorite writers. When I was growing up, he was one of the few African Americans working in American comics.

When I was growing up, I did go to the arcade. We had a neighborhood arcade, and my friends and I would go fairly regularly.

My experiences growing up in both a Chinese American household and the Catholic Church define much of who I am.

I've tried to write from my own understanding of identity in all my comics, whether it's about superheroes or historical conflicts or monkey gods.

All of the narration in 'Smile' is first-person. Most of the books that I grew up reading had first-person narrators for some reason. My diaries were written in this voice, and since this story is autobiographical, it just felt like a natural extension.

Grub Street Writers is the reason I've stayed in Boston. I started teaching for Grub back in 1997, when founder Eve Bridburg, a Boston University M.A. alumna, as I am, kindly gave me my first job out of grad school.

There are two equalizers in life: the Internet and education.

Much of the criticism centered around Betsy DeVos focuses on her lack of experience with public schools. While she has shown some interest in 'protecting' students from the non-existent threat of grizzlies wandering onto their campuses, she has never run, taught in, attended, or sent a child to a public school.