I write to excavate. My writing stems from a desire to unearth a truth; a coarse and unpolished truth.

 

The kind of truth that takes years to find and decades to confront. The kind of truth that releases itself in tight whispers at church or screaming matches at the dinner table. The kind of truth that stings like finally tearing off a hangnail.

 

As an international adoptee, I’ve always grown up with the knowledge that the people who share my hands, my nose, my eyes – they will never see me again. Part of my past will remain forever hidden, forever imperceptible. This is why I write to understand the buried truths. This is why I write about family.

 

My plays highlight matriarchs and patriarchs – and the roles a family fills for one another. My plays feature transactional love. My plays feature virulent love. My plays feature undiluted, scalding, screaming love. All of it in the name of family.

 

My characters know how a communion wafer tastes and never agree on what it represents. My characters dream of traumatic brain injuries, central A/C, clean water, Nature Valley bars, and escape plans. My characters can’t decide whether they want damnation or salvation.

 

What my writing excavates isn’t a fossil of something long-dead. It excavates the dusty childhood photo albums, the odd and unexplainable loyalty to high school football teams, the hangovers spiraled into toilet bowls, and the ways a home can be both bomb shelter and minefield.

 

My plays scoop out the inhumane and present it as what it actually is: something unceasingly human.