Ta-Nehisi Coates on writing

“You try to go from really bad, to okay, to acceptable, and then you know you’ve done your job. I never really get to that perfect thing that was in my head. I always consider the entire process about failure,” says writer, journalist, and educator, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Coates is the author of a memoir called: The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. The recipient of a "Genius Grant" from the MacArthur Foundation, Coates’ second book -- Between the World and Me --  won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

“I think that’s the main reason people don’t write. It is very depressing in that way.”