Learn by doing. Every time we write we are deepening our craft. As we attempt new writing techniques we will take the pressure of perfection off ourselves. We can’t expect to run if we have to first develop the muscles needed to stand. Each exercise, each scene, each draft we write is part of our personal writing development. Our own sense of quality will come with time and we will be generous with ourselves as we delve into new waters and patient that our abilities will deepen with time and practice.
Marisela Treviño Orta is an award-winning playwright, a graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer. A poet for many years, Marisela found her way to the playwriting in 2004 while completing an MFA in Writing at the University of San Francisco where she studied poetry.
Her plays include: A Place to Belong (2018 ACT’s Young Conservatory); American Triage; Braided Sorrow (2008 Su Teatro); December; Ghost Limb (2017 Brava Theatre); Heart Shaped Nebula (2015 Shotgun Players); Return to Sender (2019 Nashville Children’s Theatre); The River Bride (2016 Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Shoe; Somewhere (2020 Temple University); Wolf at the Door (2018 National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere) and Woman on Fire (2017 Camino Real Productions).
Marisela is an alumna of the 2018/2019 Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit, the Playwrights Foundation’s Resident Playwright Initiative, a founding member of the Bay Area Latino Theatre Artists Network, and a member of the Latinx Theatre Commons’ national Steering Committee. Her awards include: 2006 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize in Drama; 2009 Pen Center USA Literary Award in Drama; 2013 National Latino Playwriting Award; 2016 Kilroys List; 2016 Latinidad Playwriting Award Runner-Up, The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival; and 2019 Alliance/Kendeda Finalist. Currently, Marisela is working on her Audible commission Nightfall and on an untitled stage adaptation for Disney Junior based on the TV series Elena of Avalor.