A Rural American playwright raised in Alabama, New Mexico and West Texas, Kelly’s aesthetic view is a fusion of Southern Appalachian and Southwest U.S. culture and heavily influenced by the literary genres of Magical Realism, Romanticism and Gothicism. She is author of the Southern Gothic crime noir, To Tread Among Serpents (Winner of the Southern Playwrights Competition, O'Neill Semi-finalist) and the dark comedy western, The Hall of Final Ruin (Princess Grace Semi-finalist, BAPF Semi-finalist, Renaissance Theaterworks Brink! Award). Other plays include A Poison Squad of Whispering Women, The Resurrection of the Publick Universal Friend, El Loro, El Gato Y El Espíritu Santo (or The Parrot, the Cat, and the Holy Ghost) and The Show Must NOT Go On! Her plays have been developed or produced by The Barter Theatre (VA), Renaissance Theaterworks (Milwaukee), Something Marvelous (Chicago), The Bechdel Group (NY), Teatro Vivo, (Austin), Jacksonville State University (AL), Raíces Theatre Company (Buffalo), Durango Arts Center (CO), Khaos Company Theatre (Indianapolis), Tennessee Stage Company, and the Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette (IN). Prominent themes in her writing include death, religion, money, vice, race, class, and gender. Kelly has a degree in Theatre Arts and an English Literature minor from the University of New Mexico. Currently, she is the Director of Diversity for the Center for Science of Information at Purdue University and an adjunct actor and program consultant with the Cornell Interactive Theatre Ensemble at Cornell University. Kelly is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, an emeritus member of the Ithaca Shakespeare Company, serves on the Board of Directors for the Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette, and has worked professionally with Libby Appel (New Mexico Rep) and Beth Milles (Cornell University).