ANDREW BISS

In a few days from now I’ll be releasing my new book “A Mouth Full of Ashes” and I’d like to share with you how this story came about. A couple of years or so ago, I came upon a news story that grabbed my attention in a way that many others don’t. It involved a murder, but of course we read about murder, death, and all manner of tragic events on a daily basis. We read them, lament them, and then move on. This one, however, had a different angle to it that gripped my imagination. In a small town somewhere in the Midwest (I believe) a young pastor was delivering his Sunday sermon to his congregation. A young man with no associations to either the town or the pastor drove into town that morning, walked into the church and shot the pastor dead in the middle of his sermon. It was one of those inexplicable, mindless, random and tragic events that defy reason. The pastor was married and had two young girls who would now grow up without a father. Fast forward just a week or two ...

All of the work I've been putting into publishing and marketing The End of the World these last few weeks has taken my focus off of my plays, which have been quite active of late. This week my one-act Carbon-Based Life Form Seeks Similar opened in New York as part of the Curan Repertory Company's Notes From The Underground festival. I received a lovely email from the director this week, telling my what a fantastic experience it's been for her and the actors to work on the play, which was very gratifying to hear. I wanted to get up there and see it myself, but at such short notice (the run ends today) it just hasn't been feasible, which is a great shame. I will be in New York this coming Thursday, however, for the reading of my full-length play The Treachery of Images . It's being given a reading by Heiress Productions , a great company that donates money from all of their productions to various cancer charities. The play was selected by Heiress as a winner in thei...

I was very pleased to discover that my full-length play ‘The Treachery of Images’ has been selected as one of three winners in Heiress Productions’ 2010 Playwriting Competition. As a result, the play will receive a staged reading in New York in May or June this year (exact date to be confirmed). This is very gratifying, as this play was one of the most difficult plays I’ve written. The subject matter (a husband and wife dealing with aftermath of the rape and murder of their daughter) meant that I had to immerse myself in a very dark, painful place every time I went to work on it. There’s a lot of emotional sweat equity of mine in that play – if that makes sense? The other gratifying aspect to this is that Heiress Productions is a truly unique and eminently admirable company. A not-for-profit theatre production company that raises awareness and funds for cancer organizations, they partner with one cancer organization for each production and donate a portion of the proceeds to their char...