I write to music, so every script I have has its own playlist. Music just opens me up to the emotions that I'm writing.

What we were most hoping to achieve with Shots Fired: empathy for all of the characters and conversations about our criminal justice system, which is broken on every level, from the street all the way up to the highest level of government.

In film school, I knew I wanted to be a director, but I found out pretty damn quickly that nobody was just going to hand me a script to direct.

I grew up with white parents and until after college, it was a lot of confusion, especially because I grew up in an all-white area. So I never looked around and saw anyone who looked like me.

A classic is a classic for a reason. Let's try to create new classics. The idea of repeating ourselves drives me a little crazy.

A Different World was run by black women, Debbie Allen and Yvette Lee Bowser. Lead writer Susie Fales-Hill was a hero of mine, because she was 28 when she was running one of the top shows on television. Going to work every day and seeing black women in charge made that normal to me.

I want us to have it all, love and career. It's a struggle sometime to achieve that, but I love the struggle.