Goodreads asked David Kruh:

How do you get inspired to write?

David Kruh It started with homework assignments in elementary school. A report on my favorite dinosaur. Who is your favorite baseball player (Tom Seaver, since you asked)? Even back then I remember enjoying the process of researching and writing. The idea that I could write a whole book... well, that came much later when I arrived here in Boston in 1981 looking for a place my uncle (a sailor in World War Two) told me about. It was called Scollay Square and it was Boston's entertainment district, filled with theaters, burlesque houses, nightclubs and other honky-tonk staples. But by 1981 it was gone, replaced by urban redevelopment. So I went looking for a book on the place but there was none. So... in my free time I started collecting stories from natives who used to go there. (People LOVED talking about their times in the Square.) Went to the Boston Public Library for articles and books which might mention the place and, when I had enough information, wrote the book. Eventually I wrote two of them on Scollay Square (www.joeandnemo.com) and, with some degree of confidence that I could successfully string words together, wrote articles, columns and more books.

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