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I thought I wasn't attractive or talented anymore. I cried easily and was depressed and removed. I became emotionally insecure about what the second half of my life would bring. I was angry, scared, frightened and lonely.

I know I didn't want to get caught up in the cycle of drugs and violence that was around me. Deep down inside, I felt there was something better outside the situation I was in.

This is why my art is about violence. Because I was subjected to so much of it as a kid. After that, and a lot of thinking, I became less violent. I realized that there must be other ways. So, I started to pursue them.

When I left prison, I had to figure out how to embrace my past.

I was an opportunist and got away with things because I was very young, but I went to prison and came out and remade my life.

I became a very angry person and it was all due to alcoholism.

I did have imprinted on me the idea of trauma that changes things dramatically and suddenly. As a writer, I return to that again and again because it fascinates me, and it's where I come from, in a sense.

It's very hard for me to find any sort of shame or blame in my life. I'm not made that way.

It was just you had to be strong, and if you weren't strong you're a victim and you're not going to make it. That was the reality when I was growing up.