As a child, Shanelle Boluyt decided she wanted to be “a reader” when she grew up.
She devoured book series, including “The Boxcar Children,” “The Baby-Sitters Club,” and the Logan family saga by Mildred Taylor.
“Then, a few years into grade school. I realized being a reader wasn’t really a job, so I decided I’d become a writer instead,” said Boluyt, a DevOps business systems analyst for the Institute for Social Research’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.
After determining her future career at the age of 8, Boluyt did in fact become a prolific writer, scribbling down stories through adolescence whenever she had downtime — or her history teacher wheeled in a TV.
“The moment the lights dimmed to watch another history video, I would start writing,” she said, laughing.
In college, Boluyt majored in fiction writing and turned out a sizable body of work. But upon graduation she faced a new realization: It’s hard to make a living as a fiction writer.
Shortly thereafter, “a family friend called and asked if I could come over and help fix their printer,” Boluyt said. “I’ve always been pretty tech savvy, so I fixed it — and they handed me a check. That’s when it occurred to me that I could use the analytical side of my brain to support myself, then write on the side.”
Boluyt went back to school and got an associate’s degree in microcomputer system support and took a job at Border’s in tech support, followed by a role at ADP as a technology specialist. She came to Michigan Medicine in 2017 as an information services consultant and was promoted the following year to DevOps product manager. She moved to ICPSR last year.
She says she enjoys her current role at U-M and appreciates the analytical and task-focused work because it allows her to save up creative energy for Fridays and weekends. Boluyt works at U-M four 10-hour days a week, Monday through Thursday.
Fridays have become Boluyt’s writing days because, as it turns out, she did find a way to become both a writer and a reader when she grew up.
It didn’t happen overnight though. In her 20s, post-college, Boluyt developed a cast of characters and storylines — but, on the cusp of 30, she’d yet to write any of it down. Despite her best intentions, while pursuing a career in IT, she’d mostly set writing aside.
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Then, in 2011, Boluyt’s husband suggested she attend a writers’ group in Chelsea. He belonged to one and said it might help get her started again.
“I decided to try the group, mostly for the accountability,” Boluyt said. “If I had a deadline, if I had to bring something to share at the meeting, I thought I’d finally start writing down the ideas in my head.”
The day of Boluyt’s first meeting, she found out she was pregnant. She figured she’d keep going to the sessions until the baby was born, then take a break.
“But that’s not what happened,” she said. “I loved the group, and my writing took off. I didn’t even skip right after my child was born.”
Over the years, Boluyt has become co-director of the writing group and she’s founded several others. Each group serves a different purpose. Some review shorter works, like a short story or a single chapter, while others critique longer pieces, like novels.
Participating in the groups has taught Boluyt how to constructively review the writing of others, as well as her own, and how to receive feedback. She says it has made a noticeable, positive difference in her own writing and storytelling.
The writing groups have also given her community.
“I’ve become very good friends with people in these groups, and it’s an interesting way to get to know others because writing can be quite intimate. You’re seeing inside someone’s head and heart,” Boluyt said.
“Also, a lot of us in these groups are introverts, but the writing gives us a purpose to come together, something to talk about. I’m the person at a holiday party who prefers to stand in a corner. But, when I go to a writers’ group party, I’m a social butterfly. I know these people. I love these people.”
That supportive environment helped Boluyt write and publish her first book in 2019 with Fifth Avenue Press, based in Ann Arbor.
“Intersections,” a young adult story about the aftermath of a fatal car accident, began as a single chapter. But, after sharing the work with her group, Boluyt realized this idea could become a whole book.
“For ‘Intersections,’ I’d created the characters years before and had their lives mapped out. This story was just one part of many I’ve imagined for them,” Boluyt said.
Boluyt recently wrote another YA novel, tentatively titled “People You Know, and Other Myths,” about a young girl whose father is accused of sexual assault at work. She is workshopping it in her writers’ group now.
She’s also just started experimenting with a new genre, magical realism, in a story set on an island where locals all have special talents. The main character can hear what people are thinking.
“Not all their thoughts,” Boluyt said, “just what’s on the tip of their tongues — the things they’re thinking that they don’t say out loud.”
Boluyt says writing — or getting in the flow, as she calls it — is freeing and, sometimes, goes in an unexpected direction.
“When I’m writing, my inner critic is gone, which is nice. I love seeing the story come to life, and sometimes it surprises even me,” she said. “My characters do something, and I think, ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen.’”
