I remember when I first learned that it was a “playwright” not a “playwrite.” You’re not someone who writes a play, you’re someone who builds a play. That absolutely astonished me. It gave so much more power to the writer. At the end of the day it’s just words on a page, but the writer is the one responsible for the setting, the characters, and themes that everyone else will eventually work to portray. I’ve never been much of a playwright, always preferring to bury myself in novels, but prosewright doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. Still, writers like us are responsible for painting characters, crafting scenes, building environments, and bringing together fantastic, speculative worlds.

Dreamwright

I am a carpenter, a dramatist, and a director,

And there’s little that all those skills are all good for,

But if you piece and you play and you pray,

They stick together just well enough to stay,

And you’ve hammered and scripted together

One little dream that’ll last forever.

A good dreamwright is hard to come by,

The kind that builds dreams that don’t die.

It’s a shame there’s so few of us

When dreams are needed in abundance.

Someone needs to make them from scratch

Oil the hinges and make sure wheels attach.

Some of us are good, some of us are bad

But we’re responsible for every dream you ever had:

The nightmares, the adventures, the vivid fantasies,

That play on your deepest desires and anxieties.

We are the ones that make sleeping souls laugh,

For this our artform and dreams our craft.