Creative Writing

Project background

I was hired to write nine monologues based on data garnered from qualitative interviews regarding personal experiences working in the non-profit sector. I had the task of looking at the data and crafting it into fictional but believable stories that would be read as part of a theater production. The work culminated in a production titled Silent Voices. The challenge I faced was completing this project at the beginning of the global pandemic. During a time where meeting face to face would have been extremely helpful to carry out this project, I and the actors had to come up with alternative solutions to collaborate, which concluded with a virtual performance over zoom.

Creative process

I analyzed the qualitative data with the project leader, looked for the most common experiences, and put a name to the character I wished to represent these. I then wrote stories from the perspective of women of all different ages and backgrounds, each one highlighting a trauma they faced while working for their company.

Final results

The production was a success and the monologues resonated with the audience who was made up of both people working in the non-profit sector as well as those outside of it.

Excerpt: Out to Pasture

Character: Bonnie, sixties

This monologue should be performed with minimal set and simple lighting. Bonnie addresses the

audience directly.

Bonnie: I grew up on a farm. Well, maybe the word “farm” is too generous. I grew up in the middle of

West Missouri on a piece of land with a ranch house and a bunch of chickens. As soon as I was old

enough to have chores, I was given the task of collecting eggs from the chicken coop each morning for

breakfast. I loved this job. I would wake up, wash my face, and still in my nightgown, run down to the

cage, opening the little door to see if my chickens had left me a present. I would gingerly take the eggs,

wrap them in the hem of my nightgown, and carefully run back to the house. As far as my five-year-old

self was concerned, I was the reason my family ate breakfast every day. 

One day I ran out to the chicken coop, just as I did every morning, only to find one of the chickens lying

on the ground. Neglecting the eggs that the other two had provided me, I ran back to the house,

screaming for my dad. He came out, and saw the chicken. He told me it wasn’t dead, which caused a

great wave of relief to sweep over me. This quickly subsided when he followed it up with “she’s sick. Too

sick. She won’t be good for meat.”

I suddenly had an epiphany. Over the course of time I had been collecting the eggs, I hadn’t paid much

attention to the fact that sometimes there would be more chickens than others. And that when we ate

chicken for dinner, that it was the final sacrifice of my birds.

The way my father had said “she won’t be good for meat” was so callous, so insulting, that I began to

cry. I asked him if we could take her to the vet, like we did our dog Milo when he had cancer in his

stomach. He told me no, since it was a farm animal and he wasn’t spending money on something that

wouldn’t have any benefit for us. So before I could comprehend what was happening, my father had

reached into the coop, snatched the sick hen, and snapped her neck. I was distraught. Through my sobs,

my father tried to explain that the chicken would have only gotten the others sick if we had left her in

there. He brushed off my insistence that I could have kept her as a pet, as he told me that “wasn’t her

purpose.” 

Flashforward almost sixty years. I oversee a non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide

resources for victims of sexual assault. Before this, I was working for men in suits while I sat at their

front desk, greeting anyone who walked through the door. I watched different men come and go from

that CEO chair and I was never granted a requested pay raise. By age forty, I decided I was done trying

to prove myself to deaf ears and blind eyes. So, I embarked on a project I was actually passionate about:

starting a foundation that provides legal and financial support for people who have been sexually

assaulted. I’m not going to burden you all with my entire life story but let me just say that this was a

cause that is near and dear to my heart. Not only had I experienced sexual assault in my past, but my

daughter did as well. I was a broke, single mom looking for justice for my little girl, only to find out that I

didn’t have the funds to do so. This broke me. But like I told my daughter, sometimes people must break

in order to see what they are truly capable of. 

Starting a nonprofit as a middle-aged single mom was no easy feat. I did my research though, and

thankfully I had friends who agreed to serve on my Board of Directors. The office I worked at previously

was a financial firm, and some co-workers I had become close with volunteered their time and

knowledge to get things started. It took five excruciating years before we were on our feet and I felt like

we were making an impact. But I was able to take a step back and be proud of what I and my co-

founders had accomplished. In five years, we had established our nonprofit in three different states, had

thirty full-time employees and an internship program. 

For twenty-five years, I watched the organization go through some serious changes. As the years went

on, our board experienced turnover. Not surprisingly so. But I couldn’t help but notice, little by little,

that the people who made up the board began favoring the younger employees rather than supporting

the people who had been with me since the beginning. My philosophy has always been that a truly

successful organization will thrive even when its founding members are no longer present. It will be able

to stand on its own. This mirrors the mantra I told myself while raising my daughter. If I did it well

enough, she would be an independent woman who didn’t need me to flourish. I didn’t realize how this

thought process would come back to bite me in the ass.

Time snuck up on me like an old, uninvited neighbor. With it, technology. I was never “technologically

inept” but I am not in the same league as the younger generation. My old job at the financial firm

required typing and knowledge of using the copier. That’s it. So now at my non-profit, I can barely keep

up with what number iPhone is coming out, much less how to use it. I never relied much on my phone. If

it called who I needed to reach at the time I needed to reach them, I was happy. Little did I know that

this lack of interest in electronics would put a target on my back. As the years went on, I stepped back

from the frontlines of the organization, and let the younger staffers take the lead. I was still the CEO but

wanted the younger professionals to take ownership of some of the bigger responsibilities. I hadn’t

anticipated the consequences this would have, not only on my career, but on my life. 

It started out with small comments about my mental capacity. At sixty-five, they were constantly

questioning if I remembered things correctly. The term “senile” was used once...or twice...or five times.

They asked if I needed one of the interns to train me how to use the iPads that one of our staff members

decided we needed. It was exhausting, learning something just to be told there is another newer, more

advanced piece of machinery I needed to master. 

And because the universe has a sick sense of humor, I ended up with a myocardial infarction due to a

clogged artery. In other words, a heart attack. Rather than wonder if I was okay or offer words of

support or well wishes for a full recovery, within two days my thirty-year-old Board Chair was asking

when I would be back. The board was in panic mode. How long will it take you to recover? Who will run

the organization while you’re in the hospital? They were running around like chickens with their heads

cut off while I fought for my life. Six weeks and hundreds of hours of physical therapy later, I returned to

the office to find that the board had already made an offer to bring on a new CEO. No consultation with

me, no heads up, just “hey, welcome back, glad you’re alive, you’re out in two weeks.” I was stunned

with disbelief. I had become the chicken who was too sick to perform her function in the food chain. So

instead of letting me spend my remaining days in their company, they thought it best to cut me out

before I became even more of a liability to them. 

There I was, staring into the abyss with no retirement, no health insurance, and no income. They robbed

me of the organization I had spent over two decades building almost single-handedly. The board kept up

appearances, throwing a nice “retirement” party, sending out press releases highlighting all my years of

service as a CEO, making everyone think that it was my idea to retire. But here I am, chewed up and spit

out wondering where I go from here. And still wondering.

Fade out