Talk to me about when you were younger, growing up in Atlanta. What were you into?

"School and community theater. I was acting at the time in Atlanta. For a long time, I think I really wanted to become an actress. I wanted to be a movie star, someone like Tina Fey... I'm glad that I'm not that. I think of it as a necessary dream for me to have, because it did lead me to writing as a career goal, which I'm very, very grateful for.

"It just felt like I was always a bit of an outsider. Like, 'Okay, we're doing Oklahoma... there aren't really any Black people in Oklahoma, but I guess I'll audition.' I remember thinking, Wow, the only way that someone like me is gonna get parts is if a Black person writes parts for them. I wouldn't call it an epiphany, but I started to understand that I'm just not gonna get the parts I want unless I write the parts I want. That's when I really started taking writing seriously. Whether or not I really became an actor became less of a concern. And not to say that there aren't brilliant Black playwrights out there — there certainly are. It's just that my motivation at the time in high school to start writing. Was, wow, I can't perform these parts 'cause they weren't written for me. I should learn how to write these parts for myself.”

Atlanta is more than just has a cast of Black people: It's a show that's naturally Black, that doesn't center or privilege whiteness. How does it feel to be a part of that?

“It feels great. Atlanta isn't heavy-handed. That's what I love about it, that Blackness just exists on the show. I don't want to get soapbox-y, but I've always wanted to work on a show like this. Atlanta just validates what Black people go through all the time. I like that it's been such a critical success, sure. But the coolest thing is that there's a bunch of 15- and 16-year-old kids watching this show who have something to look at other than Friends or Big Bang Theory."

You co-wrote the episode about Van, where she has dinner with a Basketball Wives-style friend. Van has a job, and a child with the Donald Glover character, but they're not really together. Meanwhile, her friend has a revolving door of professional athletes footing the bill for her life. How did that episode even happen?

"That was a story that Donald actually had been thinking of: He just had this idea in his head in about the value of Black women. He mentioned something like, 'If a Black woman goes missing, nobody really cares.' He asked questions like: How are Black women valuable? How can they become valuable? It's hard to articulate what that means, to be valuable, especially as a Black woman. So we wrote something where you understand where this character Van comes [from], but you also understand where her bougie friend comes from. They're adding value to their lives in different ways."