Lyra Nalan is a Chinese playwright based in New York. She is a recipient of the Kennedy Center's Judith Royer Award, Miranda Theatre Playwrights Grant and Horticultural Playwrights Workshop Fellowship. Recently Lyra was nominated for the Susan Blackburn Smith Prize by Silk Road Rising Theatre and NNPN's Smith Prize for Political Theatre by Interact Theatre. She's also a finalist for New Harmony Project and Relmagine TYA competition, and a semi-finalist for O' Neill National Playwrights Conference. Her work had been developed or showcased at the Kennedy Center, Cherry Lane Theatre, Round House Theatre, Spooky Action Theatre, Miranda Theatre, Avant Bard Theatre, Tradewind Arts Asian American Artists, The Living Room Players, Strand Theatre, Three Cats Productions, among others. Currently, she’s under commissions from Adventure Theatre MTC and Silk Road Rising Theatre. Lyra's writing is influenced by her childhood in China and the differences she's experienced from living abroad. Her writing grapples with the issues of our time, but does so outside the confines of realism. She hopes that her writings can start dialogues about how we can find agency and humor in challenging circumstances, and build an empathic connection with others.