Andrea, a doctoral student in education, has a demanding schedule. She has a young child, a job, a house on the market, and a spouse who travels so much that she can only see him on certain weekends. To cope with these unavoidable distractions to her research, she found the writing center and was paired with a fellow graduate student, Charisse. Meeting with Charisse gave Andrea the opportunity to move ahead when she may have otherwise been at a standstill with her writing. In turn, Charisse supported Andrea and helped her manage her research at a time when it seemed nearly impossible. In order to draw attention to the role of motivation in tutoring, this article shows how Charisse's interest in Andrea and in her research served as a powerful motivating force by helping to move Andrea from a focus on external pressures to a place of intrinsic motivation where she could express excitement for her writing and research. As a case study, this research is limited in scope, but seeks to explain why a tutor's interest--that is, deep curiosity in a writer's work--is so important in writing center tutoring. (Contains 2 notes.)