I write plays that are small and scrappy or big and messy: life isn’ t well-made, so why should plays be? I grew up as a queer, (half) Puerto Rican only-child in rural (Confederate flag-waving) Virginia on an 103 acre forest to professional bodybuilding parents. Needless to say, shit was weird growing up. Most of my plays find characters trapped in a confused landscape muddled with the taste of the American South; the feel of Appalachia; the blinding desert heat of the Wild West; and the lyricism of Latin America. Wes Craven’s SCREAM was my first masterclass in storytelling; I learned structure from Steinbeck’s THE GRAPES OF WRATH; my dialogue chops are brought to you courtesy of MEAN GIRLS; Tennessee Williams made me a poetic queen; and the images that haunt my pages are influenced by Toni Morrison’s BELOVED and Sarah Kane’s BLASTED. I write plays that are loud, unapologetic, queer, pornographic, violent clashes of pop-culture, identity, celebrity, history, myth, and magic. Plays that are filled with gay werewolves, drag queens, white buffalos, Jennifer Lopez, cocaine, dreamers, and John Wayne Gacy. I write plays that take our skeletons out of the closet, throw some skin on them, and treat them to a cheap dinner at Chilis. I vow to always chase the terror first and the grace second--because grace only comes after we’ve scared ourselves shitless.