kristy bowen | writer & book artist

When we saw The Seagull earlier this week, and Hedda Gabbler last week, it got me thinking about the portrayal of writers onstage and in a dramatic context. One of the things we often assume is that the actual writer is using the writerly characters as stand-ins for their own selves. This would all be well and good, and persists in both literature and film as a pretty standard idea (this was one of the reasons Stephen King did not like Kubrick's Jack Torrance.) What I am finding in a lot of drama, this is less the case, or at least seems to be.  I've written two play scripts (well one and a half technically) with writers as the main character. One was The Yellow Wallpaper ,  with a character that already existed. The other current play in progress features a writer clearing out a family home after her mother's death, which at the end of Act I finds herself not only convinced the house is haunted by her brother's ghost, but also is starting an affair with her high scho...