Maya Chowdhry [RECORDING DESTROYED 2009 - on the wish of Maya Chowdhry]

Maya Chowdhry is an award winning playwright, poet, writer and live artist. Her plays include 'Kaahini' (Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 1998 and 'Red Ladder Theater Company', national tour, 1997), 'An Appetite for Living' (West Yorkshire Playhouse, 1997) and 'Splinters' (Bradford Theatre in the Mill, 1997). She has written four plays for BBC Radio including 'Monsoon' (1991). 'Monsoon', a winner in the 1991 BBC Young Playwrights Festival, was nominated for the 1993 BBC Newcomer Awards at the Prix Futura in Berlin and was published in 'Six Plays by Black and Asian Women Writers' (Aurora Metro Publications , 1993). The author of 'Shooting the Shots', a critical chapter published in 'Talking Black: Lesbians of African and Asian Descent Speak Out' (Cassell, 1994) , she has won much acclaim for her widely published poetry and fiction. Maya Chowdhry is the recipient of a live art commission from the Institute of Contemporary Arts and has performed and taught nationally and internationally. In 1994 she was resident dramatist with 'Red Ladder Theater Company' and from 1991 to 1994 she was a member of the editorial collective of Feminist Arts News. She was a guest tutor at the Manchester Writing Festival in 1994 and at 'Words Without Borders', the international lesbian and gay writers festival in Vancouver in 1990. Maya Chowdhry was a co-founder of 'Spheres', a ground breaking project wherein South Asian lesbian, bisexual and transgender women celebrate their sexuality and identity. She is a member of the Writers Guild and the Black Arts Alliance.