When I graduated middle school, one of my teachers signed my yearbook: “Rachel, You are a “why”!” I didn’t have to ask. The nickname came about because I often cannot stop asking questions.
Later, when my Dad and I were commuting to work together, he would often get impatient and turn the radio from NPR to the Classical Station of the New York Times WQXR. Usually, it would be in the middle of a radio story about some obscure topic in some country that I would remind myself to look up on the map later. He wanted to listen to news that was more locally relevant; I remained fascinated by the eclectic and the obscure. (We’ve been continuing this same conversation in one form or the other for about the past 20 years or so…)
When I joined the military and trained as a 46Q print journalism and public affairs, I finally found a job where I could ask a lot of questions AND seek out obscure and eclectic stories and make them interesting and known to other people. I enjoyed writing features–getting to know people, what they did, fun facts about their lives.
Now that I primarily write fiction and do the occasional interview for my blog, I find that a lifelong interest in the obscure and eclectic has paid off. I enjoy doing the interviews for my character “Conversations,” although I’m realizing that the time I have for them is very limited. I still have a couple I need to write up and publish, but I still want to expand into sharing interviews with people whose creative abilities are outside of the scope of writing. I will still, of course, continue to share interviews with writers, but I want to branch out to painters and musicians and medieval re-enactors and more.
I am going to start a new series of Conversations, interspersed with my traditional interviews with writers. My goal is to have them up on Mondays and share them throughout the week. Check them out and if you think you might have an interesting story to tell, let me know. If you have a friend with an interesting story to tell, send them my way.
And now, back to my word count.
