Writing is radical acceptance, an unconditional love for people, even at their most flawed. And writing is embracing the most vulnerable emotions with open arms. I write when it comes from a place of despair or sadness or fear or chaos. I write about the lies we tell each other and those that we tell ourselves — I think within our society, obsessed with niceties and manners, no one ever says the full truth of what they mean and I think this principle is especially true when it comes to women. As young women, we are taught to hide our emotions — be demure and polite, sit and look pretty. Because of this, I create strong feminine characters who are deeply flawed — some of them are even monstrous. I explore how young women are perceived and how they learn to perceive themselves, how adhering to societal standards of femininity is destructive not only to ourselves but to other women, and how the imperfections of women are taken to the extreme. Because of all of the lies we tell each other every day and the need to spread some kind of truth, inside of the worlds of my plays, I allow my characters to say and do the difficult things. I let my characters scream and cry and hurt each other. I let them draw blood and fall in love and lose themselves. I allow feigned confidence to reach its breaking point elucidating the vulnerability inherent in all of us and I strive to reveal the selfishness and spite innate in humanity.  Even when I create these people — people who may be deplorable and violent and broken, people who are liars and fakes — they all live within myself so I have no choice but to accept them. By the same token, I am interested in the lies that we tell to ourselves. I ask myself from where delusion stems and why we tell ourselves stories. I wonder why we obsess and how what we choose to obsess over illuminates something about ourselves. I scrutinize love and the way we trick ourselves into thinking another person may have the answers as well as how we use one another to further our own lies. I often think about what we can’t say out loud, even to ourselves and what are the words behind the words. In looking at the inconceivably large universe in which I exist, I also remember that there is a huge sphere of emotions that I have never experienced. Although my ultimate dream is to experience everything — love, hope, despair, anger, destruction, whimsy, death, and everything I can’t even name — I know this is essentially impossible. But with writing, creation of characters who I see as my friends, confidantes, enemies, and a reflection of the darkest parts of my heart, I can experience a breadth of emotions especially those that are scary and new. Perhaps, as I grapple with the parts of myself that I fear and the ghosts that I, myself, hold, I can connect with others by sharing my writing with the world.