New to fiction, I'm a Midwest playwright whose plays have been produced in cities around the country: Denver, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Minneapolis, with readings in New York City and elsewhere. Creating strong dialogue, believable characters, and a compelling plot are critical qualities I've developed from this experience, which usually involved the workshop process. I work fast, and take edits and criticism willingly.

I like writing about the interplay between personal beliefs and institutional controls—never neat, sometimes chilling, and both comedic and tragic. Myth, history, and religion are special interests. I believe I've transferred skills from the stage to the piece of fiction I've just completed.

This writer is looking for an agent.

Paul Mohrbacher
paulruth@visi.com

My stage play "The Chancellor's Tale" won first place in the Julie Harris Playwright Award Competition sponsored by the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild. It has been produced or given staged readings in theatres around the country and was published by the Dramatic Publishing Company.

Currently a staff person at the Science Museum of Minnesota
Experience in Church ministry.
Critic fellow at the National Playwrights Conference

I'm looking for an adventurous agent to represent "Culpa," a 98,000-word piece of general fiction. Turin, Italy, is most famous for two things: The Shroud of Turin, safeguarded in the city's cathedral for almost 500 years; and the Slow Food Movement, whose biennial Salone del Gusto is known worldwide for its advocacy of sustainably grown food. When the Shroud is stolen from its vault just as the Salone gets underway in 2004, two Americans are caught up in the mysterious connection between the two events and a radical Christian sect.