I am a feminist - I just think the label reflects my beliefs - but, you know, we say 'Rookie' is a website for teenage girls, not a feminist website for teenage girls. That's not because I'm not proud to call myself a feminist, but when you're calling attention to a project, you can very easily be pigeonholed by choosing certain identifiers.

In high school, I was doing my magazine 'Rookie' and a lot of writing, and I became a little less interested in the fashion world. I was approached by an agent for writing, and I said I wanted to act as well. They sent me scripts, and then I got my first Broadway play, 'This Is Our Youth'.

Before 'This is Our Youth', I did a week of table reading 'Airline Highway' at Steppenwolf in Chicago while the author, Lisa D'Amour, workshopped it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is mysterious; you don't ever truly know where it is coming from, so don't edit yourself line by line. Don't get in your own way. Whatever is truly there at the core, that is your voice.

Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.

For the individual and for society, the more diversity you have in a field means more ways of solving a problem as well as more creativity and originality.

Syria may appear to be a small country, but it is just the type of entangled conflict that can lead to a world catastrophe. It does not take much imagination to see Syria as the Sarajevo of the 21st century, leading to world war.

I don't think the label makes the artist or the artist makes the label. It's the music that makes everything work or not.