Belated Highlights

At first I thought I wouldn't share these this year, but now before we get too far into 2020,  here are some of my highlights from 2019. It's good to look back.

Highlights:

• Submitted to over 200 writing opportunities
• Spent my third year in a row in Creede, Colorado for the National Winter Playwrights Retreat, where I workshopped my play Polar Opposites: An Impossible Tale
  
• While in Creede, got my short play Ways Not to Drown recorded as an audio play for The American Playbook podcast, released in June
• Completed my TYA Animal Trilogy, making that three commissions in a row from Boise Contemporary Theater in 2017, 2018, 2019. In 2019 I enjoyed a staged reading of Polar Opposites: An Impossible Tale
  
• Taught my dream class, a six-week Writing for Performance workshop through The Cabin
• My play How to Hide Your Monster was a semi-finalist at Seven Devils Playwrights Conference
• Got two ten minute play productions through Idaho State University: Ways Not to Drown and Somewhere on the Pacific
• Completed Julia Cameron's 12 Week Course The Artist's Way for the first time
• Co-taught two Migration Theory residencies -- one at Boise State University (BSU) and one at Company of Fools in Hailey, Idaho
• Performed in readings with Migration Theory at Treefort Music Festival and MING Studios
• Got poems published through Timshel, Willow Creek Journal & Z Publishing ("not ready", "last breaths", "how could you ever find air", "Water Obsession")
• Read poems at the Voices for the Earth event at BSU 
• Heard an excerpt from my play Kilgore performed at Campfire Theatre Festival's Fundraiser Gala
• Thanks to the Alexa Rose Foundation, enjoyed three months in a playwriting sabbatical writing my new play, see in the dark
• Spent two weeks of those sabbatical months at Seven Devils for a Your Own Private Idaho playwrights retreat
• Heard my new short play lift read at HomeGrown Theatre's 10 Minute Play Festival
• With help from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, traveled to Juneau, Alaska to do two weeks of place research for see in the dark
• On that trip, my partner proposed to me in front of a waterfall and we got engaged!
• My short play The Way Up got an NYC reading through The Alternative Theater Company
• At last started a small interdisciplinary writing group! We meet monthly.
• My partner and I started hosting backyard concerts. Quite fun.
• Spent some enjoyable time in one-on-one mentorships
• Got my radio play CloudMelt produced by Radio Boise
• Went to workshop see in the dark in Pagosa Springs, Colorado for a week through Thingamajig Theatre Company, enjoying two public readings in the process -- one seated, one staged
• Also got to hear a reading of my play How to Hide Your Monster at Thingamajig in Pagosa Springs
• My short play The Way Up got produced in Vancouver, BC, by the Tomo Suru Players. My first international showing!
• My short play Ways Not to Drown was accepted for a scratch production in London through Talos Theatre Festival -- they ended up having to table until fall 2020 because a director dropped, but that's something to look forward to
• My one-act Hoarse was produced in Austin by Trinity Street Players
• Got to share the stage with my dearest one at Radio Boise's Couch Surfer Series, reading work, playing music and having a conversation with Matthew Cameron Clark
• Started working with my sister Kate Kraay for the first time on a devised theater project

Here are my three big goals for 2020 and 2021:

3 Big Goals for the Next Two Years:

• Travel overseas
• Go on one (or two!) silent meditation/silent writing retreat(s)
• Send 250 submissions in 2020, 300 in 2021

2020 is my year of finding presence, rather than worrying over the future or running reels of the past through my brain. That's my intention, anyway...we'll see how it goes :)

A sweet waterfall and (delicious proposal site) at the top of Perseverance Trail in Juneau