My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.
The impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field, which at that point was being an actress.
The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.
But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.
It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.
It's really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don't get in trouble.
Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.