Victor LaValle

For as long as I could remember, the person in E23 pasted the same Halloween decoration, a witch with a giant wart on her crone's nose, but whenever kids rang, the tenant wouldn't answer. At first, kids figured they'd just missed the guy: bad timing. But it seemed impossible that all of us missed him every year.

I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?