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.

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

We have two boys. After George Zimmerman was found not guilty of killing Trayvon Martin, we had to explain to our older son, who was 12 at the time, how that could happen. Instead of hugging and consoling him, my husband pulled out a documentary about Emmett Till and showed it to him and started to talk about how the justice system works in this country - and how it often doesn't. From that conversation, our son wrote a short story about Trayvon Martin going to heaven to meet Emmett Till.

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.

Even if someone doesn't look like you or you don't know people like this in your real life, you get to know them and you get to see their humanity and you get to empathize with them. Our hope is that through empathy that can spark change. We hope people start talking to each other and our show sparks conversation because we need to start talking to each other, not at each other.

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.

That's why Serena Williams is such a hero for me, because she's got such incredible swagger, and it's earned, and she can teach us that it is a good thing. The fact that she has been denigrated and called cocky - I mean, she's the best in the world! I hope my work can inspire other women to have that swagger and believe that they can have it all.