God help me find the story in the slush of my life.

All my skills as a performer, mother, and academic cohere to shape the way I write plays and poetry. Groomed to perform classical piano, I rebelled in my undergraduate years to study acting and everything I could about theater. While acting, I continued playing music (jazz piano and bass guitar) in rock bands. My journals filled with poet doodles of lines or rants with some kind of cadence: feelings in a momentary lust. 

I eventually wrote my first play while teaching theater at an NYC public high school, about a man who believed Marylyn Monroe faked her death, so he faked his death to meet her. 

The musicality of language shapes the voice in my plays snd poetry, while womanhood and mothering shape the masks my women characters wear. Usually characters that seek to survive and overcome the limitations women face in a traditional society. At the heart of my stories, I tackle wanting to be seen and heard after decades of living in silence: running like a red thread through my story tapestries. 

Rooted in a feminine aesthetic, my plays consider how gender influences relationships, implicitly or explicitly, motivating social behaviors and norms between people and groups.

There is nothing arbitrary in writing: each word, line, and beat is a deliberate choice. As I study other writer’s chosen aspects of craft and structure, I inch toward understanding how I make those choices in my writing. My artistic mission starts with the belief that storytelling (stories) should not be bound by convention. 

I write in many styles: naturalism, epic or post dramatic structures. But in a meeting with Lynn Nottage, I asked her what genre she would categorize my work. She replied:

“Lyric naturalism.”

My goal is to learn, to let go, and get out of my own way in becoming my authentic writing self. I seek to immerse in continued learning - to meditate - to unleash whatever creative imagination might exist within my soul - so in some way I can tell relevant stories.

Thank you for supporting my endeavors, while I work to survive the slush of life.

Diane
Living in Rananchqua, "The End Place" or the "River of High Place"

NOTE: Unless otherwise indicated, the content on this site is unpublished and not for sale. You may link to and briefly quote the content on this site. Links to the content or brief quotes from the content on this site posted on social networks or elsewhere are not to be construed as publication.
You must not:
     *  Publish material from this website without prior written consent.
     *  Sell or rent material from this website.
     *  Reproduce, duplicate, download, create derivatives, copy or otherwise exploit material
     * Redistribute any content from this website, including onto another website.