About Me

Kelsey Austin is a playwright and short-form author. She also works as a freelance editor and artist. Kelsey has experience in directing, choreography, scenic design, and stage management. She earned her MA in Literature: Theatre and Drama at Essex University in Colchester, England.

She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Playwrights’ Center, Chicago Dramatists, Telling Humans, and the Dramatists Guild Writers’ Group of NYC.

Kelsey’s plays have been developed through residencies and staged readings across the United States. Her short fiction appears in The Closed Eye Open, Half and One, and Bending Genres. Kelsey’s creative flash nonfiction is in Wild Roof Journal. Her flash fiction will be included in NUNUM’s upcoming anthology. Kelsey’s story “If You Try to Get a Pony” was chosen by Superlative Literary Journal as the winning piece. Her debut chapbook of flash fiction, Domestic Disturbances, is out now through Bottlecap Press.

I grew up in a family of painters, of visual artists, and our primary activity was sketching. We’d sketch on Saturdays, holidays, and on vacation. While my friends were at a theme park, I was sketching in a graveyard. The practice instilled a need to notice and document. I want us all to notice. I want us to notice and bear witness to the hidden human experience. In my work, I’m making markers for lives, tombstones on unmarked graves. I want us to see how vulnerable we all are, how we must do a better job of protecting each other, and how damned the downward spiral can be. I write stories about ordinary people in all their twisted, aggressive, hopeless, humorous, and sad glory. Sad glory is something to notice.