Episode 4 - featuring playwright, Margie Semilof, and a reading by poet, Michael Fontana

Margie Semilof is a Boston-based playwright. Her short plays have been produced at a variety of regional and national festivals, such as The Group Rep, in LA, Theatre East, in New York, Firehouse Center for the Arts, Newburyport, Mass., at Greenbrier Valley Theatre New Voices, Lewisburg, WV., and the Weathervane 8x10 in Akron, Ohio, to name a few. She was recently commissioned by Theatre East in NYC to write short pieces for the 5x5 festival that ran in conjunction with the NYCPride Festival in 2019, and a piece for students at Stella Adler Studio's summer program in New York. Her full-length comedy, Queen of the Coast, recently received a staged reading in development with Traguna Productions, NYC. She is vice president of Playwrights Platform, a playwright cooperative in Boston. An Ohio native, Michael Fontana has lived in Bella Vista for the past 11 years. He worked as an activist, teacher, and fundraiser before retirement. His poems most recently appeared in eMerge, Oakland Review, and Owen Wister Review. He earned creative writing degrees from Charter Oak College and Miami University. Awards include an Older Writers Grant from the Speculative Literature Foundation and a Sally A. Williams Artist Fund Grant from the Arkansas Arts Council. His past work providing creative opportunities for homeless people and people with mental illness still gives him his greatest sense of accomplishment.