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Millennials have been through… a lot. We were raised pretending to like mullets and midriffs, only to have to pretend to like them again in middle age, and we have no clue whether we’re supposed to wear skinny jeans or baggy jeans or the uncomfortable ones in between, but based on decades of experience we know in our bones (literally) which is more versatile and more practical to wear during a spring rainstorm and winter months when we need to wear boots and either way will feel self-conscious when wearing them because we were taught that our bodies (especially women’s bodies) should only be prodded and improved with everything from sparkly lotion that smells saccharine and rotten to under-the-table collagen injections to celery soup diets, though we were also raised playing in concrete parks outlined in rusty, pointy metal objects and suspicious dirt and uneven trees, so we’re tough enough to handle ourselves no matter our exteriors or if we can breathe, or so we want to believe, because at the same time we also know what a softer life indoors with technology is all about, as well as what that technology was really supposed to be made for: games and exploration and talking with our IRL friends in chatrooms, which we didn’t take for granted because getting on the internet powered by a dialup modem was a coordinated effort that required patience and endurance and negotiating skills in our households which typically only had one communal computer in the corner of the living room anyway, which also meant we knew the limits of privacy and how to conduct hardcore research at the IRL library if we wanted to pass our classes even though we were open to learning what the wilds of the internet could teach us, back before corporations commoditized everything, including us and our data and our time, until we got bored or physically restless and had better things to do IRL outside, somewhere, anywhere, we had to get out and do things that didn’t happen on a screen, but at the mall or the local meetup spot that was also likely covered in concrete or dirt and glass and was still serving as our childhood-adolescent playground, all while enduring pagers and flip phones that cost a fortune and still made it impossible to connect to— we didn’t know what we were trying to connect to really, just knew when it wasn’t happening— until smartphones came onto the scene and also cost a fortune with their limited apps that never worked, especially the social media apps that we tried to enjoy for a little while on our smartphones because we knew we were supposed to, but it was hard to enjoy them because cell service was always poor wherever the fun and action was IRL and so was basic app design and so were our camera phones and most of the apps were for working people with devices named after fruit so we didn’t really care about any of it, not really, though we really tried to because peer pressure and marketing pressure and the day we were forced to care about it all and take it more seriously with more serious, professional email addresses and usernames for corporate employers who we were convinced for a short time actually cared about our development because, well there were always so many personal development reports and meetings and incomplete but supposedly important data about our performance we had to focus on and improve and improve and improve because according to the data there was and always will be room for improvement, indefinitely, but room for growth was different somehow and there was never room to grow up or out, figuratively and professionally speaking, not literally, which some of us sure did, grow out more than up, because of all the sugary drinks we became addicted to across our lifespans because marketing and commoditization and cancerous secrets, you know the drill, which we should have learned more about when we were much younger and trying to squeeze into those shrinking jeans and tops, even though we were also raised to believe that hard work and determination and a five to six figure education that we were supposed to have paid off making $7 an hour at the chain shop near our school by graduation because that’s what our ancestors did and they said it was easy and that we were lazy if it didn’t all work for us too and that maybe we were drinking too many sugary drinks from the coffee shop that we couldn’t afford that were also eerily similar to the ones they got us addicted to when we were younger—well, somehow all of that, the hard work and determination, was supposed to mean something in the world, or so we were told over and over and over again, though we weren’t sure to whom or for what it was supposed to mean something, especially not now because we were and are too distracted, which could be from all the attention-deficit and anxiety medication we’ve been pumped with for decades for a healthy buck, along with the sugar and plastic and cancerous screens and pollution, remembering that it was all supposed to lead to prosperity at some point, if we only kept our eyes on the prize, though the prize we have our eyes on keeps being moved, still, and we’re already half-way dead, which probably started happening after The Great Recession hit, after all the bad things that happened leading up to and after 9-11, and after that when the housing market collapsed into oblivion, forever, though they keep telling us it’s coming back soon, though we don’t know for whom or when exactly, with all the unhoused, wandering adults out there trying to make it seem like they are the ones choosing insta-glam lifestyles in a van or tiny home without land, or was it during all the invasions and call-to-arms that No Child Left Behind heard for years alongside reciting the pledge of allegiance and grunge music and addictive pop and post-ballad rock, or whatever tunes we were into at the time, and while reading and studying controversial books and being too poor to buy books at the book fair and learning that slavery was bad while watching movies and shows that made us want to be more inclusive and honorable and live by creeks or fight vampires or demons, all while finding true love full of passion and heart, which was impossible because we had, have, so many personal development reports and expense reports due for items we were sold that we never wanted to buy, like all the pharmaceuticals and improvement elixirs and screens, so many screens now, until it was far too late for our self-esteem, and it seems like there is no escape because everything is now coming due, including our lives, which have been sold to the highest bidder of no-equity-trust and we all know without a doubt by now who the vampires really are, and that they’re real… so at least there’s that, I guess, in the end, at least we had less book bans and weren’t worried about bots overtaking our lives for a short time when it was only theoretical entertainment that wasn’t alive, but can we rely on our bootstraps and our books and our past critical thinking and stream of consciousness prose and meter and erasure poetry to save us now, from the explosion and implosion of everything, for the future into the future? I sure hope so.

What are your thoughts on this topic? What do you think Millennial poetry will be known for in the future? Leave a comment to join this dialogue, and don’t forget to share this post with others so they can join this dialogue too.

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Community Notes (New!)

COMMUNITY DIALOGUE

What do you think Millennial poetry will be known for in the future? Leave a comment so we can discuss! I’m looking forward to keeping this conversation going.

Note: Your thoughtful comment on this post could be featured along with your byline in a future post.

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Join the PUBLIC chat thread for Egalitarian Book Club’s May pick: Westward Women by Alice Martin. Warning: Spoilers are allowed in this chat thread since we’ll be using it to discuss the whole book!

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💬This Week’s Dialogue💬What does ‘success’ as a writer actually look like for you—not what you think it should look like, but what you genuinely want it to look like? Join the chat to discuss!

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Egalitarian Book Club

CURRENTLY READING

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Week 1 (June 1-7) — Part I and Part II Chapters 1- 11

Week 2 (June 8- 14) — Part II Chapters 12- 27

Week 3 (June 15- 21) — Part II Chapters 28- 42

Week 4 (June 22- 30) — Finish Book

A public chat thread will be shared in Substack to discuss the entire book at the end of the month. Until then, join our Buddy Read in Storygraph to chat about the book as you read it.

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JULY BOOK: TBD

A poll will be posted in Storygraph for this book selection soon! Join the club so you’re ready to cast your vote when it goes live.

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May was a busy month for Daily Drafts & Dialogues. I spent a lot of time incorporating a few new changes, which you may have already noticed. And I’m hoping these changes bring a tighter, more connected writing community here moving forward. It’s still early, but I hope Daily Drafts & Dialogues continues to inspire you to keep writing and find the connections you need for your writing and intentional, creative lifestyle. I am so glad you’re here!

Daily Drafts & Dialogues May 2026 Post Roundup and Recap

Below is a compendium of what was published on Daily Drafts & Dialogues in May, along with some of my reflections. Share your thoughts and related work in the comments so we can discuss.

All posts are free for seven days until they’re auto-archived to paid. Subscribe for free to read newer posts. And if you want to read older posts, consider switching to paid or start your 30–Day Free Trial for unlimited access to the post Archive.

Essays

The Best and Worst Writing Advice I Ever Received … which followed me from ninth grade through grad school to now… Can you guess what it is?

What are you going to ‘get caught reading’ this month? is a homage and how-to for National Get Caught Reading Month, which is celebrated in May. But you can still celebrate it in June and year-round!

Are women authors starting to rewrite history? covers women authors who are now actively rewriting history by centering forgotten, marginalized, or misunderstood women in nonfiction works and historical fiction, transforming ‘hisstory’ into ‘herstory.’ And it’s packed with reading recommendations!

The Power of Sentence Fragments covers why sentence fragments pack a punch, notable examples of them in literature, and when and why you should use them.

Drafting Diaries: New Series announced a new post series in which I’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes snippets of other larger writing projects I’m working on that are not usually published or mentioned in other Daily Drafts & Dialogues posts.

The Writing Habit that Changed Everything For Me was inspired by Ernest Hemingway. This post was the most popular post of the week!

What happens when you trust your curiosity more than your fear? explores how curiosity helps you avoid writer’s block and be the best writer you can be.

6 Easy Steps to Smartmaxxing Your Drafting Process does NOT suggest you need to write faster or write more, like a machine, or that you need to ‘hack’ your creativity or creativity itself. Blegh. Instead, it offers a step-by-step process for how you can remove friction from your drafting process and intentionally apply, on a routine and satisfying cadence, what already works for you, especially if you aren’t yet mindful of what works for you when you’re drafting. It will help you look for small, simple, consistent things you can do to make drafting feel less like a chore you loathe and more like a pleasant journey you look forward to being on each time you sit down to write.

Notes on English is a post with my reflections on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English by Sanaz Toossi, which I went to see at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Essentially, I loved it and think everyone should go see it ASAP.

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Creative Writing

All creative writing posts are based on writing prompts I share in the Daily Drafters Community Chat. If you join the chat, you can share your own writing based on these prompts for feedback and recognition too. You’ll also gain access to other bonus content there.

The Unexpected Joy of Springtime is based on a combination of two writing prompts— the first time I’ve done this! It reads like a personal, reflective journal entry.

City Street is flash fiction about one street at two different times of day, with two very different moods.

The Flicker of My Flame includes the stream of consciousness of a new nun who is trying to find redemption but can’t seem to escape her past.

A Limerick... or Thirteen made me rethink how and why we write limericks and allowed me to have some creative fun.

Rogue Reflection is a spooky yet heartfelt piece of flash fiction you might want to read on a day that you’re having trouble looking in the mirror.

Different Storms is a piece of flash fiction about a storm in three parts: Hello?!, Hello?, and Goodbye.

All that I Desire is a poem that serves as a reminder of what we’re truly linked to in this world, lest we forget. I’m actually pretty proud of this one but am curious how I might revise it in the future.

A Murder in the Woods is one of the most creatively weird things I have written in a while and is full of onomatopoeias. If you want to write something that will take you out of your comfort zone, I recommend completing the writing prompt that inspired this post, which is also included in the post.

Modernize reads kind of like a philosophical free write, in which I ramble about what I would modernize first. I can definitely see myself editing, revising, and adding to this draft in the future.

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Book Reviews

A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan (Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science) is a book for those who love to get lost in philosophical ideas and concepts, as well as the science and theories that support and refute their assumptions surrounding those concepts. I urge all potential readers to adopt an open mind (pun intended) when picking up this book, and to be prepared to unpack everything they think they know while also realizing they likely know absolutely nothing about what they think they know. First, a warning. If the following philosophical statement does not appeal to you, neither will this book: “All I know is that I know nothing.” — often attributed to Socrates.

Son of Nobody by Yann Martel (Retelling, Metafiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction) is a compelling retelling of the Trojan War told from the perspective of a commoner in ancient times as discovered and pieced together by a ‘common’ Classical scholar in the modern world. And it is a novel worth reading for those who enjoy retellings, translations, storytelling, metafiction, archeology, ancient history, Greek mythology, and works that dabble in all of those things simultaneously.

My Dear You by Rachel Khong (Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Asian American Literature) is a smart and surprising short story collection, as each of its stories blend the hard truths of the world we live in (racism, capitalism, and other isms) with creative imaginings for the present and future while simultaneously highlighting the sincere value of love and loss in all its forms, evolutions, and origins. Each story touches on a profound human experience like dating, working, conceiving or not conceiving children, and navigating mortality alongside one’s close relationships and purpose. Yet each story also evokes a different set of emotions throughout. Be prepared to laugh, cry, rage, think, wonder, and reflect a lot when you read this book.

A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides by Gisèle Pelicot, translated by Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver (Memoir) is one of the most difficult memoirs I have ever read or will ever read. But it’s also surprisingly bittersweet, as Gisèle refuses to let what her husband did to her define her, her memories, or her future. After reading this memoir, it’s crystal clear why she earned so much recognition for her role in updating rape laws in France, and how pivotal her unprecedented case was to calling attention to the widespread stigma survivors of rape and sexual abuse often encounter across the globe.

Go Gentle by Maria Semple (Literary Fiction, Philosophy) is a unique novel that surprised me in a good way. It’s as reflective as it is entertaining and as witty as it is solemn. I truly didn’t know what to expect with each page I turned, but appreciated how Semple was able to weave a suspenseful turn of events around the protagonist’s evolving life of the mind— two things that readers may not expect to naturally intertwine, but nevertheless do in this novel, in a way that ensures the main narrative remains engaging.

The Bombshell by Darrow Farr (Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction) is a novel whose main character will infuriate and annoy you as much as she charms and intrigues you. Believe me when I tell you that you haven’t read a coming-of-age story quite like this one before— one with an entitled teenage girl who unexpectedly becomes the face of a short-lived, chaotic domestic terrorist movement while falling in love for the first time.

The Age of Calamities by Senaa Ahmad (Short Stories, Experimental Fiction, Historical Fiction) is as poignant as it is entertaining… and very, very weird… but ‘very, very weird’ in an intellectually stimulating way that will demand your full attention and reflection. It will have you pausing every few paragraphs to gasp or sigh or chuckle and might even have you reaching for your most trusted historical resources to see how much history you really know and or understand.

Westward Women by Alice Martin (Historical Fiction, Feminist Fiction) is a novel with both obvious and hidden layers worth exploring and is as mysterious as it is enlightening in many aspects. I would recommend it to historical fiction readers (especially those who enjoy reading fiction based in the US during the tail end of the hippie era), and readers who enjoy unraveling slow-burn mysteries centered around the precarious plight of women.

Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar (Short Stories, Magical Realism, Feminist Fiction) is a short story collection that is easy to savor, as each of its tales are imbued with a thread of magical storytelling that will transport you to unusual and beautiful places you never knew you wanted to visit before reading them. Yet they each carry bittersweet, and all too realistic, parables women and displaced people will be able to understand in their bones. Truthfully, it’s been some time since I’ve read stories so hauntingly tragic yet deeply heartening as these.

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ICYMI

In May, I launched a few new features on Daily Drafts & Dialogues in an effort to facilitate deeper connections with fellow indie authors, creative writers, critical thinkers, and prolific readers like you, who are interested in building an engaged and supportive network of open-minded and creative people who believe in the power of language and storytelling. Find out what you need to know about each new feature below and let me know if you have any questions.

Community Notes

In this new section of Daily Drafts & Dialogues (located at the bottom of each post), you will see additional notes on posts and what’s going on in the broader Daily Drafts & Dialogues community, more in depth questions to spur further dialogue, polls, discounts, contest opportunities, helpful links and resources, and opportunities to have your comments, substacks, and work featured in the Community Spotlight section. You’ll also see the occasional complimentary writing prompt, featured work by our Daily Drafters, and links to other exclusive content.

I really want to showcase others’ work (your work!) in this section, to continue to build a tighter, more connected writing community. I want to know what else you’re writing and reading too and really want this to be a space for us to connect and inspire one another.

Daily Drafters Community Chat

In May, I opened the Daily Drafters Community Chat, where I’ve been sharing daily writing prompts with tips and encouragement to complete them— There are currently over 25 writing prompts available in the chat to inspire you and your writing!

In the chat, there are also weekly Community Chat threads (posted every Friday), where you’ll have the opportunity to share your responses to the writing prompts, dialogues, and any other writing you want to workshop and receive recognition and feedback on (like your next Substack post, the next chapter in your WIP, a personal essay or poem, etc.).

FYI: Whether you participate daily, weekly, or monthly in the chat is entirely your call. I started the Daily Drafters chat to help you keep writing top-of-mind every day. It’s as simple as that :) You can participate as little or as much as you want in the chat once you join. You’ll still always see human-generated prompts and conversation threads that will help you stretch your imagination and writing skills in fun ways while getting the support you need at the same time. Whenever you’re ready.

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Drafting Diaries Series

In this new post series, launched in May, you’ll get a peek at my creative process, some of my struggles and breakthroughs, broader reflections about what I’m working on, as well as occasional snippets and notes about what’s inspiring me and my work (which could include your work!). Read more about the Drafting Diaries series here.

Coming Soon

The first monthly Daily Drafts & Dialogues Digest is coming your way soon!

This monthly digest is ideal for those paid subscribers who want to receive all Daily Drafts & Dialogues has to offer without getting daily emails.

This monthly web-only digest will include:

✔ Daily Drafters and Community Spotlight Features and Featured Work

✔ Monthly and Quarterly Writing Challenges

These writing challenges will be a little more challenging to complete than daily prompts, for those who want to take their writing to the next level. Writers who are looking for a leg up on their next writing project or want to work on something they can add to their professional writing portfolios will also be interested in these challenges.

✔ Previous Month’s Daily Drafters Writing Prompt Roundup

You’ll have a month’s worth of writing prompts in one spot every month. This section will also include featured community members’ completed prompts from the previous month.

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Behind-the-Scenes

In future months, I will share my personal reflections on the previous month and the month ahead in this section… so expect to see more about me and what I’m up to, thinking, and feeling here. I hope this helps you get to know me and why I do what I do a little better with each passing month. Bottom line: I believe writing and reading every day (even in small doses) can change both you and how you experience the world for the better, and I want that to remain at the center of Daily Drafts & Dialogues.

For now, I’ll say that I am excited to see where all the new changes to Daily Drafts & Dialogues lead. This past month, I have been busy and hyper-focused on making Daily Drafts & Dialogues a more inspiring and engaging space for you and me. I know it will be worth it!

Tell me what you want to see more of on Daily Drafts & Dialogues in the comments so we can continue to build a writing community you can rely on and support.

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WIPs

Look for updates on my current WIPs in this section in future months. I am currently working on a genre-bending speculative fiction project that looks like it might turn into a trilogy. Expect to see behind-the-scenes notes on my project and process here. I might include a few excerpts from the project from time to time, as well.

From the Community

In future months, this section will highlight the work you’ve shared with us over the previous month, and some of the meaningful dialogues we’ve had.

I want to use this section to highlight you and the writing community we’re building together.

Expect to see shout outs and excerpts of notable writing by you and the writing community we’re building, as well as links to other Substacks and books you’ll want to read here.

Truly, I want Daily Drafts & Dialogues to be a publication that keeps you inspired to write by connecting you with engaging posts and prompts, as well as other engaged writers who want to support you and your work!

Egalitarian Book Club

The Egalitarian Book Club is for those who believe that reading is fundamental to changing minds, expanding hearts, and building meaningful connections with other humans. This book club is ideal for those who enjoy reading a variety of genres and books and often seek out authors who have diverse backgrounds that are different from theirs. We read a bit of everything and typically vote on our selections.

We have Buddy Reads hosted in Storygraph each month, for those who want to read and discuss our book selection at their own pace throughout the month. But I’ll post a recommended reading schedule for each book we read, which will be located below Community Notes in Daily Drafts & Dialogues posts, for those who want it. And I will also host a free Substack chat thread about our book selection at the end of each month so everyone can discuss the entire book together there, especially those readers who aren’t currently using Storygraph.

In May, we read Westward Women by Alice Martin. And in June, we’re going to read Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke— Join this buddy read here, and stay tuned for an updated reading schedule.

Join the Egalitarian Book Club

Final Reflections for May

May was all about implementing new features on Daily Drafts & Dialogues. I honestly didn’t have much time for much else, so I can’t wait to see these new features really take off in the months ahead so we can use them to further grow this writing community we’re building together.

In case I don’t say it enough, I am so happy you found this little corner of the internet!

Thanks so much for your continued interest in Daily Drafts & Dialogues.

I can’t wait to connect with you in the comments sometime soon!

Until then, happy reading and writing!

Take a beat to reflect on last month and celebrate your wins before we start a new month.

Tell us one thing you learned in May, or something you did in May that you’re proud of, in the comments.

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© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

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Daily Drafts & Dialogues is fueled by loyal readers, caffeine, and shares with kind words, so any support you can offer to keep it and me going is greatly appreciated. Sincerely, thank you so much! — K.E. Creighton

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Have you ever experienced a work of art that resonated so deeply with you that it felt like home, like you’ve experienced it before, even if its origins exist half a world away and you know you’ve never technically experienced it before?

Well, I did last weekend when I went to see the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English by Sanaz Toossi at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. A play that was remarkable and complex by way of its simple message: Language communicates much more than information, as it is infused with deeply human, cultural, and intimate meaning that often surpasses specific languages and specific utterances. Yet each language is also steeped in its own rules and idioms and colloquialisms that make it unique, like each individual who chooses to learn it and wield it.

English demonstrates that we do much more than speak language. It demonstrates how we feel language, we live language, we embody language, we create language, how we have complicated relationships with language, and how, most importantly, language works to create our identities.

The play is set in a classroom in Karaj, Iran, in 2008.

Marjan is the English instructor who lived in Manchester, England, for nine years before returning to Iran. She is strict about enforcing an ‘English-only’ rule in her classroom, which creates tension as the adult students struggle to learn. However, over the course of the play she forges complex connections with her students as they learn English, all who have different motivations for learning the language, which inevitably force her to reckon with her own relationship with the language.

Elham is a highly competitive but frustrated student who is desperate to pass her TOEFL exam to attend medical school in Australia but resents having to learn English and feels it conflicts with her Iranian identity. And in many ways, she acts as a foil to Marjan, who often waxes poetic about the English language and the cultural experiences and memories it offers her via music and movies.

Omid is the only man in the class. He is highly proficient in English and enjoys watching American movies with Marjan, though his real motivations for taking a beginner TOEFL class are a mystery to the others until the end of the play.

Roya is an older, soft-spoken student determined to pass the TOEFL exam so she can communicate with her granddaughter in Canada, as she believes she will move there to live with her son and his family soon.

Goli is the youngest student at around 18 or 19 years old. She is sweet, earnest, and deeply passionate about learning English, finding aesthetic beauty in the language and relishing the cultural currency it can provide. She often offers the comedic relief needed when the other students, especially Elham, get tense.

As the play progresses and the students participate in various class assignments, language drills, and word games, so does the relationship each student has to the English language as Marjan’s strict directives force them to abandon speaking Farsi, leading to simmering frustrations, heated arguments over cultural identity, and the intense emotional realization that language acquisition can simultaneously open doors to new lives and opportunities while closing older, familiar doors and connections to home and oneself.

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The play opens with Goli trying to communicate her simple makeup routine to the class, immediately offering a few relatable laughs, regardless of language barriers. Then Goli states how she likes English because “English does not want to be poetry like Farsi,” and that it lacks the heavy, rigid poetic burdens of her native Farsi. She compares the English language to rice— how it is flexible, practical, and light enough to stay afloat on top of water rather than sinking. Which invites audience members to consider the utility of language itself.

During the play, we continue to encounter Elham’s resistance to learning English and understanding English, which drives a lot of poignant dialogue around language learning concerns like: Is Ricky Martin’s accented English still English? Does someone need to have an ‘official’ reason like getting a state-sponsored visa or earning an exam score to be permitted to work abroad to want to learn a language? Does someone need their family to speak a language in order to become proficient in it? Does someone need to respect and like a language in order to become proficient in it? What happens on a personal level when one acquires, or loses, full proficiency and immersion in a language? What drives ‘full immersion’ in a language? When does one know they are ‘fluent’ in a language — is it when they pass an exam, or when they express themselves honestly and authentically in it?

And can someone be seen and interacted with as if they are different people in different languages? In the play, for example, Omid asks Marjan, “Why do you only like me in English?” and Goli and Elham discuss how Elham sounds ruder and less caring in English than in Farsi. We see Roya become less genial in Farsi than in English as she navigates her relationship with her son, whom she can’t reach. And we see Marjan’s presence as an English instructor become less confident as she speaks more Farsi.

The play also uses a brilliant linguistic trick: actors speak in highly accented English when their characters speak English, and perfectly fluent English when the audience understands that they are really communicating in their native Farsi.

In the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Study Guide for English, patrons are offered the following note:

“Sanaz Toossi’s English takes place in an English language learning classroom in Iran. It is part of a lineage of plays that explored language barriers, creatively finding ways to either remove or emphasize the language barrier for the audience. In the play, the teacher, Marjan, requires her students to speak English in the classroom for proper immersion, so the audience usually hears the characters speaking a language in which they have varying degrees of proficiency.

In a note prefacing the published script, Toossi writes:

“In the world of the play, when a character is speaking English, the audience will be hearing accented English. In the world of the play, when a character is speaking Farsi, the audience will be hearing unaccented English.”

In the script, spoken English is bolded, whereas Farsi is unbolded. Additionally, the use of brackets indicates what words the character is looking for but might not have in their new vocabulary.”

Toossi wrote English as a nuanced response to anti-immigrant sentiment and travel bans. Instead of relying on typical diaspora or war-torn tropes, she created a localized, grounded story that relies on this brilliant linguistic trick of accented language to offer behind-the-scenes access and meaning to an English-speaking audience, which really hits home at the end of the play when the last scene is primarily in real Farsi, not translated English.

For the English-speaking audience, the realization of what is lost (and not lost) in translation in the final scene hits home when the dialogue between Marjan and Elham is left untranslated, allowing audience members to feel the comfort, joy, loss, and deep self-expression the characters share, even if they don’t speak Farsi.

Bottom line, English masterfully balances the toil and comedy of language acquisition with the confusing heartbreak of assimilation and invites audiences to immerse themselves in the power of language and what it does and can do on a profoundly human level.

As a former ESL instructor for all ages, this play resonated with me on so many levels because I know firsthand that understanding why a student is learning English is as important as teaching them grammar and vocabulary. There are so many reasons to learn a second language, and it isn’t always as easy as it seems, especially for adult learners whose complex identities are already imbued with their native languages, and for younger learners whose identities are still forming and remain so impressionable.

Additionally, as someone who loves being reminded of the power of language and storytelling in art in all its forms, this play is one I cannot recommend enough, especially now, as US-Iran relations are at a breaking point and we all need to be reminded how language and storytelling can bridge gaps between humans.

[Additional Resources: 123 ]

What are your thoughts on this topic? Have you seen English yet?

What is the last play you saw, and what did you think of it?

How do you think art can bridge divides between humans?

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© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.

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Egalitarian Book Club

Join the Egalitarian Book Club

Currently Reading: Westward Women by Alice Martin (Join the buddy read here.)

Recommended Reading Schedule:

Week 1 (May 1-10) — Chap. 1-7 (Part I)

Week 2 (May 11- 17) — Chap. 8-14 (Part II- III)

Week 3 (May 18- 24) — Chap. 15-21 (Part III- IV)

Week 4 (May 25- 31) — Part V, remaining chapters

June Pick:

Votes are in! We’ll be reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke in June.

Join the buddy read here. And stay tuned for a recommended reading schedule.

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