G. Willow Wilson

“Good is not a thing you are. It is a thing you do.”

“'Butterfly Mosque' came out of the emails I wrote to family and friends back home after moving to Egypt.”

“Americans look at the Middle East as a source of trauma because of 9/11. At the same time, I could see the fear going on in the Middle East as well - which would be the next country to be invaded or sanctioned? Being around those tensions was traumatic for me.”

“Dear child, some stories have no morals. Sometimes darkness and madness are simply that.""How terrible," said Farukhuaz."Do you think so? I find it reassuring. It saves me from having to divine meaning in every sorrow that comes my way.”

“It took me a long time to square with the fact that none of my experiences are typical - I'm not a typical American, but I'm also not a typical Muslim.”

“Sometimes, by using the most over-the-top, ridiculous plot device you can imagine, you get some interesting little conflicts and cool things that you might not otherwise have a chance to explore.”

“It's patently impossible for a Muslim character to represent 'all Muslims.'”

“Superheroes don't often get their powers in one fell swoop. It's like superhero puberty.”

“An ambitious, surreal tale of the love between a young Arab girl sold into marriage and the orphan boy she adopts, 'Habibi' spans multiple eras of conflict and change, stretching the lifetimes of its two protagonists over many centuries.”

“I think that's a huge theme in superhero books across the board: When you have this massive power, how do you use it responsibly? When do you intervene? Those are the big questions.”

“I do hope the success of 'Ms. Marvel' will open doors for other characters and other creators.”

“To me, writing an ongoing series feels like driving a freight train downhill. All you can do is steer and pray.”

“My career is a black comedy of sorts. I spent a lot of time explaining myself to various different groups. But more and more, I'm finding that the desire to communicate, which all these audiences share, is a powerful thing.”

“I tend to deal with characters who are sort of at that same point of wrestling with, 'Who am I going to be as an adult? What do I believe? How am I defining myself in the context of my culture and my peer groups, my family?'”

“In many countries in the Middle East - and this is changing in the wake of the Arab Spring - but for a long time, censorship of books and film was a very big deal. There were books you couldn't buy; things with political content would be censored, but there were some genres of books and film that the censors just didn't understand.”

“In the West, anything that must be hidden is suspect; availability and honesty are interlinked. This clashes irreconcilably with Islam, where the things that are most precious, most perfect and most holy are always hidden: the Kaaba, the faces of prophets and angels, a woman's body, Heaven.”

“So many people are of mixed heritage; everyone is from somewhere else.”

“I think lot of Muslims have gotten fatigued by the way Muslim characters, even 'positive' ones, are portrayed in the media.”

“I think people, especially in the Muslim community, are rightly cautious any time you hear, 'Oh, there's going to be a Muslim character.'”

“'Air' is what the world looks like: An inconvenient mashup of human politics and divine geography. We leave bits and pieces of ourselves and our history in every place we encounter.”