A Girl grows in Berkeley.

This is what my room in Belize looked like after Melissa Hillman wrote me to say, “Impact Theatre would love to produce your play, What Every Girl Should Know.” Which is to say, I jumped on the bed screaming and threw my pillows/laundry everywhere.

I’ve had a crush on Impact Theatre as long as I’ve known about it. They’ve produced edgy works by hot young playwrights—Milk Milk Lemonade by Joshua Conkel, Learn to Be Latina by Enrique Urueta—who then started working at a level I want to be at. I got acquainted with the Artistic Director Melissa via Twitter, where it quickly became clear to me that we were both passionate people who agreed on most things, and sometimes (passionately) disagreed. After one of these disagreements, I thought about writing her to say something like, “Hey, [gulp], let’s get coffee when I’m in Berkeley, because we’re both strong opinionated women and I think we’d be great friends and colleagues!” but I was scared to. I didn’t know her well enough yet, as much as one can know one, via Twitter. But it turned out not to matter: she read and loved Nightwork, and when I released What Every Girl Should Know, she asked for it, too. The rest is history.

I’m thrilled beyond words that this theater is producing my work. And I’ll be flying out to Berkeley to see it, this September. I will wear a bright, colorful dress, sit in the back row with my Bay Area friends, and probably get rill weepy.