After a 15-year career in television news, sometimes spent biting my tongue in the name of objectivity and balance, I retired to raise our two small children.

If you live in the overlapping world of politics and media, as I am learning, anything less than full transparency can potentially do you in.

You're never going to hear me say, 'Well, I've been critical of Obama five times, so now I need to be critical of McCain five times.' That is a false equivalence, and that's what I think is wrong with journalism.

We will fiercely challenge those forces within the education establishment who impede innovation in our schools and who protect and defend inequality and institutional failure.

Education lays a strong foundation. I was keen on films, but my mother insisted on me finding all about the line I was planning to take. I am into films but I know my Plan B is ready, just in case.

The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but which gave me the foundation of general knowledge that makes a career as a writer possible.

They call Howard University the 'capstone of black education.' Howard was one of the historically black colleges where people want to go and send their children. Both of my grandfathers went through the medical school, and being in D.C., not far from New York City, it was a natural choice for me.

I would love to write more children's books. There is such a high standard out there for children's books; there are really amazing writers. It is a fantastic creative outlet and such an amazing teaching tool. The thing I love about kids, too, is it is so imaginative and poetic.