My name is Sam Heyman and I am a gay, nonbinary (he/they) fiction writer and playwright based in Nashville, TN. A lover of theatre from a young age, playwriting entered into my creative practice during my undergraduate creative writing studies at Denison University. I continue to be enamored by the capacity of plays to portray the emotional, multifaceted narratives I envision, as well as to provoke immediate, visceral reactions in audiences. My writing career has had many twists and turns since college, but playwriting has remained a powerful outlet for personal expression and narrative exploration.

Being a multi-genre writer, I see fiction and playwriting–whether I’m writing shorter pieces or full length works/novels–as having distinct rules and limitations, but I explore these two sides of my writing with uniform dedication to telling the vital, as-yet-untold stories that inspire me. My playwriting takes full advantage of my ear for conversation and my affinity for creating characters that are as nuanced as they are entertaining to read and listen to. My plays have ranged from sprawling family dramas to concise narratives about the training of deities and the fraught responsibilities of being a creator; from dystopian explorations of gender concepts to college dorm comedies.

I tend to gravitate toward stories about negotiating one’s identity within one’s family; about exploring one’s desires independently and collaboratively; about the struggle to find self-love in a world that would wish you didn’t exist. This inevitably finds my plays densely populated with queer people, finding community amongst themselves and negotiating space where else they can. All of my plays–and all of my stories–come from a specific facet of my worldview, as a queer person, as a Jewish person, as someone who has been brought up as a boy and a man but who has ultimately carved out their own path.

I commit myself to contributing to the greater playwriting community through readership, constructive feedback and support of other writers' endeavors. I hope to connect with other playwrights and artists engaged in similar projects through my engagement with NPX and other opportunities I encounter.