Sometimes, unexpected developments can get writers out of a creative rut. In a piece I just published in Writing and Wellness, “Talk It Out: How Conducting Interviews Can Benefit Your Writing,” I discuss how interviewing a leading light in my community helped to inspire me when I was between fiction projects and feeling a bit at sea.

That leading light is Jean McGuire, the first Black woman elected to the Boston School Committee and a longtime executive director of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO, Inc.), one of the oldest voluntary school desegregation programs in the United States. I’m interviewing Jean for a brief biography, which I hope to make available through an oral-history project focused on African Americans of note.

In the piece for Writing and Wellness, I offer interviewing tips and other advice that I hope will come in handy not just for writers but for anyone who wants to conduct a productive and rewarding interview for any purpose–say, for preparing a family history.

A few months into my interviews with Jean, an idea for a new novel emerged from the recesses of my mind, an idea that truly holds my interest and, I think, has some legs. I’m looking forward to seeing where it might lead me.

I’m deeply grateful to Colleen M. Story, the editor of Writing and Wellness, for publishing the piece about my work with Jean.