Growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, the youngest of six, I'd lay across my mom's lap in in the nubby green rocking chair while she read to me. We both loved Aesop's Fables. When I was old enough to read, she took me to the Enoch Pratt Free Library, where I'd carry home a pile of books to devour. Reading inspired me to tell my own stories.
I wrote on looseleaf notebook paper and kept the pages in a cigar box. That's how I wrote the sixth grade play and the eighth grade essay read on local radio. On humid summer nights, I'd sit on the curb with friends, making up stories that we'd perform in the street to entertain the fireflies and ourselves.
I never stopped writing or experimenting. Over the years, I studied playwriting with Toby Armour, fiction with Lou Mathews, journalism with Al Martinez and Ron Russell, and essay writing with Kenneth Miller. I've published in newspapers, magazines, journals and wrote and directed dance theatre pieces. And still I couldn't find the key to making a living as a writer.
As a new hire at the regional arts center in Flagstaff, Arizona, I found so many challenges for my systems-thinking brain that I soon wore many hats and one in particular that I had a knack for — fundraising. Events, individual donor campaigns and cultivation, sponsorships, and the one that taught me how to tell a story: grant writing. It's a challenging form, with limits and constraints that made me a better storyteller, and I raised millions of dollars in support of transformative arts, culture, and education programs. (CV linked below.)
I then pivoted to join the Centers for Research on Creativity in Los Angeles. Fascinated by the inspiring mission to better understand conditions that can promote imaginative approaches to learning, design, and problem solving, I coordinated creativity research projects across the US and abroad, where I witnessed students and teachers in classrooms, makers clubs, and other innovative learning environments. I managed and contributed to investigations as a project coordinator and field researcher, co-authored a chapter on dance and creativity, and earned my Master's Degree in Creative Studies from the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State. As an elective credit, I finished the first draft of my novel, Sea glass. Then, opportunity knocked.
Well, my trusted colleague Marti knocked. She invited me to make a documentary about creative placemaking in her community. The manuscript simmered on the back burner, while I wrote, produced, and directed a short documentary on the impacts of public murals on Akumal, a small town on Mexico's Caribbean coast. I wrote and received a $10,000 artist grant from Community Engagement and matched it through an individual donor campaign. Despite COVID-19 sweeping the Yucatan Peninsula, our guerrilla team of filmmakers forged ahead, collaborating, creating, and coming home with a story.
Beyond the Bridge screened on PBS, in film festivals, classrooms, at the Southern Oregon University Creativity Conference in Ashland, Oregon and the Placemaking US Summit in Miami, Florida. Viewer response was encouraging. I wanted to make another documentary, but I had a novel waiting for a second draft. I joined Julia Fierro's fiction workshop at Sackett Street Writers, where I rewrote the manuscript that I'm now pitching to literary agents.
After 36 years living west of the 98th Meridian, I came home to Baltimore and live in Hampden, where my storytelling journey continues.
KZ Writing CV
Professional bona fides on LinkedIn
photo by Wendy Skolfield
I dwell in possibility. Emily Dickinson