lelliott-4747

I am an immigrant (born and raised in Wales). Since I emigrated to the US in my twenties, I now have"ways of seeing" that blend my birth and adopted countries. That explains why I love to explore and write, in serious and comic dramatic forms, stories of those who, through choice or happenstance, find themselves strangers in a strange land. I share the immigrants’ attempts to “navigate as safely as possible through an ever-shifting landscape of independent and unpredictable powers” (Alan Jacobs), and the difficulty of coalescing given and adopted values and ways of seeing.

After receiving my doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara, I taught English and Creative Writing at California State University, Chico. I was Chair of English for six years. While at CSU, Chico I wrote four award-winning plays. As I headed to retirement, I began exploring writing screenplays. In the last two years, I have written eight screenplay, all of which have won national and international awards at film festivals.