I gravitate towards gritty, scrappy towns with swampy atmospheres. I live in Baltimore, grew up in Pittsburgh, spent my college years in a dying Ohio mill town. My comfort zone is inhabiting complicated places with complicated histories, places that exert a pressure on the people living in it.

What I write: drama with a twist of the uncanny. Think of those times when you lift your head and think – did I just hear something? A voice? But the silence stretches and you convince yourself it was in your head… That space is where I live.

The world is weird and doesn’t always provide neat answers, and I try to capture something of that reality in everything I do.

These are the things that form me:

I am a mother. I have six daughters - true masterpieces.

I am a teacher. I chair the literary arts department for a magnet high school. My students amaze and inspire me every day, which sounds like a cliché but it’s genuinely true. Our future is in good hands with these kids.

I am a director. I love the energy that comes from collaboration. And as a mother to six, and a teacher, bossing big groups around comes naturally. Also - I love working with actors, a weird and wonderful species of their own.

I am a producer. I formed my own production company so that I could act upon some of my own ideas with creatives I admire.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but so far that’s been working out.