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.