Kia Corthron

Force Continuum: One of Kia Corthron's most influential plays was Force Continuum, which centered around "an African-American police officer who struggles with the contradictions of his race and profession while confronting the black community he is bound to protect and being haunted by his cop father’s violent death". Through out this play Kia Corthron draws parallels to the real world through the controversial topic of police brutality, which helps the audience perceive these types of situations from the perspective of both sides. This in turn, gives both parties the opportunity to explain the reasoning behind their actions and possibly receive some form of understanding from their critics. [2]

Corthron's first novel, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, was published by Seven Stories Press in January 2016. It won the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.

Corthron's latest play, A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick, received its world premiere production by Playwrights Horizons and The Play Company in March and April 2010 at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York City. The play concerns Abebe, an African preacher-in-training who arrives in a drought-stricken rural American town intending to further his studies in religion and water conservation. Hosted by a mother and daughter haunted by tragedy, he takes an interest in a young orphan starved for guidance – all the while maintaining an infectious optimism in the face of his obstacles. Undaunted, Abebe determines to battle – by any means necessary – the personal and political forces that threaten the ecology of his new home.

Corthron's first TV credit was for an episode of the 2004 series, The Jury called Lamentation on the Reservation. In 2006 she wrote an episode of The Wire's fourth season entitled "Know Your Place" which earned her Writers Guild Outstanding Drama Series Award and an Edgar Award.

In 2002 Corthron traveled with five other playwrights to Palestine, visiting theaters on the West Bank and Gaza. She was one of nine American playwrights selected by Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater for a special world travel/play commissioning grant. With their aid, In 2004, Kia chose to traveled to Liberia while the country was recovering from its civil war, and has since been working with the theater on her play, Tap the Leopard, chronicling the historical relationship connecting the U.S. and Liberia, from the initial tensions between immigrant American free blacks and the majority native population in the 19th century through the strife of the late 20th and 21st centuries.

Most of Corthron's work revolves around socio-political issues. The themes of her work have encompassed many issues found in newspapers. For instance, her work Force Continuum from 2000 dealt with the issue of police brutality. Her shorter piece Safe Box centered on an industry that dumped cancer-causing chemicals into the air and water. Her two-act drama Glimpse of the Ephemeral Dot dealt with veterans' issues. Life by Asphyxiation takes an anti-death-penalty stance. In other plays, she has examined the land mine issue, female gangs, prisons, capital punishment, youth violence, and disability.

Affecting audiences was something that energized Corthron. This was also something which drove her to hone her craft as a playwright. After graduating, Corthron was chosen for a one-year workshop with George Washington University playwright Lonnie Garter. Under the direction of Garter, Corthron applied to the Master of Fine Arts program at Columbia University. Corthron was accepted and attended Columbia where she studied under professors such as Howard Stein, Glenn Young, and Lavonne Mueller. Upon graduation in 1992, Corthron began writing plays and was granted a commission from the Goodman Theater in Chicago to write the play Seeking the Genesis, a piece dealing with parents drugging their children with Ritalin and the proposed government drugging of urban youth to prevent violence.

Kia Corthron (born May 13, 1961) is an American playwright, activist, television writer, and novelist.

Kia Corthron was born on May 13, 1961, in Cumberland, Maryland. Corthron's father worked at a paper mill in the area and died at the age of 51 from an aneurysm while working at the mill. Growing up in the mostly white, industrial town, Corthron discovered her passion for writing early on. Corthron has credited her second grade teacher, Mrs. Proudfoot, as being the person who first encouraged her to write. She persisted to create dialogues out of a need for entertainment while her older sister was at school.