Emma Watkins is a writer from New Jersey and Maine, currently pursuing her MFA in Playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Emma’s plays have been finalists for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Princess Grace Playwriting Award, semi-finalists for the O’Neill Playwrights Festival and Clubbed Thumb’s Biennial Commission, and included on the Playwrights’ Center Venturous List.  Her plays include Elizabeth is going into the ground (Leah Ryan FEWW Prize Honorable Mention) and Pretend it’s Pretend (Kennedy Center KCACTF Paula Vogel Prize Runner-Up.)  She’s developed work with support from the Kennedy Center, Theatre Masters’ Take Ten, PlayPenn, UT Austin, the Lewis Center for the Arts, Scriptworks, and Chapter Arts (UK) and has been published by Concord Theatricals/Sam French (forthcoming) and Routledge. 

She is currently under commission from South Coast Repertory and is a Fellow at the Harry Ransom Center.

She holds a BA in English, Theatre, and Environmental Studies from Princeton University.  As a Fulbright Fellow, she received her MA in Welsh and Celtic Studies from Cardiff University.

Beyond writing, she loves foraging for chanterelles, writing music and short stories, and listening for hermit thrushes on the Appalachian Trail.

COMING UP!
My play The Courtship Ritual of Sandhill Cranes will be part of the Take Ten Theatre Masters Festival in NY on April 26!
And then I’ll be on the West Coast for SCR’s Pacific Playwrights Festival – please say hello if you’re there!!
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR
Elizabeth is going into the ground had a reading at the Kennedy Center Festival (KCACTF)
Pretend it’s Pretend was performed as part of the UTNT (UT New Theatre) Festival in Austin TX