Lee Kitchen

Brief Bio

Lee Kitchen is the author of four screenplays, eight full-length plays, two one act plays, and a dozen ten-minute plays and. His screenplay, “Scabs” was awarded the Best Screenplay Award at the July, 2018 Atlanta Comedy Film Festival, the Best Short Screenplay at the Oaxaca Filmfest in October and the Best TV Episode at the Portland Comedy Film Festival in October. His new screenplay, the JoJo Mama and the Voodoo Queen, based on two, deceased and famous outsider artists, was a semi-finalist in the Westfield Screenwriting Contest. It has been selected as part of the Color Tape International Film Festival and the Finish Line Competition. Lee Kitchen’s stories, poetry, essays and illustrations have appeared in newspapers, international journals and literary magazines. Lee has spent the past ten years in China teaching for Florida State University, Tallahassee Community College and Tianjin Foreign Studies University where he is an honorary professor. He has a BS and MA in Journalism and an MBA. He has studied with American Book Award winner, Bob Shacochis, playwright Janet Burroway, Marlon Barton (O’Henry Finalist) and the poet, Peter Huggins. A Long Walk Back is his first novel. Please see www.leekitchenwriter.com.

Motivation or why I write

I’ve never known any other way to escape the loneliness of moving to a new town, from shutting out uncertainty or the daily blood and bruises from two brothers. I guess writing provides consistency. It also allows tears to roll behind closed doors, permits laughter in a room all by myself without worrying about men carrying white jackets; it extrapolates deep hidden breaths, releasing some type of energy that likes to hide out in the shadows of my meridians. Writing is my martial-leaded art. I use it to jab at gluttons, egomaniacs, and all sorts of bullies. Writing is the only thing my fingers know how to do that is legal, hard work and allows me to go to bed with that “good, tired feeling” described by Harry Chapin.