Featured Writing

Excerpts · Essays · Monologues

A place to share stories, scenes, monologues, musings, and the occasional unexpected discovery. Stop by from time to time. There's always something new finding its way onto the page.

An unexpected discovery.

I’ve had a website since 2010, the year I graduated with my MFA in Writing for Stage, Screen and Fiction from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The program itself no longer exists, but the friendships, mentors, and creative community it gave me remain among the greatest gifts of my life.

Looking back, 2010 and 2011 came together as a season of change in the best possible ways. I was fortunate to be accepted as a guest artist at the Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive. The intensive led me to my first visit to the University of Nebraska Omaha, and by 2011 I was preparing to begin teaching there. As the snow flew in February of 2011, I attended the Boston Theatre Conference alongside many of my Lesley U. friends.

Mary Conroy and me with fellow writers at KCACTF Region 1, 2011.

Around that same time, my ten-minute play Who You Got to Believe received its first award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. While my dear friend and fellow writer Mary Conroy and I occupied neighboring restroom stalls, she suddenly yelled out, “We are writers!” I laughed and told her it seemed like an odd place to make such a proclamation. Looking back, though, she was absolutely right. That moment was just one of many during that remarkable season when it felt like everything was just beginning.

As Bill Yeager and the wonderful team at High Point SEO & Marketing helped me build this new website, I found myself wandering through pages of the old one. Tucked away was this Boston Theatre Conference interview with Monica Raymond. I had completely forgotten it, although fully admit that M&Ms are still my favorite snack.

Reading it now, I smile. I hear the excitement of someone standing at the beginning of a career she could never have imagined. What I couldn’t have known then was that the writing, productions, publications, and students would become every bit as meaningful as the friendships formed along the way.

I hope this little glimpse into those early days brings a smile to your face and perhaps reminds you of the beginnings of your own journey.