Nancy Rawles

Nancy Rawles is a playwright, novelist, and teacher. She makes her home in Seattle, where she enjoys teaching young people about history and literature.

Nancy worked briefly as a journalist before moving to the theater. She studied playwriting in Chicago with Linda Walsh Jenkins and Steven Carter. She later studied with C. Bernard Jackson of Los Angeles (Inner City) Cultural Center and Valerie Curtis Newton of The Hansberry Project in Seattle. Keeper at the Gate, Nancy's play about the assassination of Seattle Urban League Director Edwin T. Pratt, was published by Fjord Press in 1999.

Nancy grew up in Los Angeles, and her first two books, Love Like Gumbo and Crawfish Dreams, are set in the City of the Angels. They tackle issues of race, class, color, and sexual identity as seen through the eyes of the fictional Broussard family of Compton Avenue in Watts.

Nancy's third novel, My Jim is set in 19th century Missouri and Louisiana. It follows the family of the famous Jim character in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn as they struggle to cope with the loss of their beloved after his escape down the Mississippi. Inspired in part by the truth at the center of Victor Frankl's memoir Man's Search for Meaning, My Jim is about the transcendent power of love.

In addition to the novel, several companion art pieces were created for My Jim, including a CD of original and traditional works. Contributing composers included Mark Broyard, Robert Louis Cooper, Ellen Finn, Bubba Jones, Venise Jones-Poole, Julie Mainstone, and Stephen Michael Newby. The My Jim companion CD also features the poem "Alphabet of the Captured" by writer and artist Carletta Carrington Wilson along with vocals by Edree Allen-Agbro, Cathy Sims, and Laura Wall, and musical accompaniment by Dennis Cahill and Hilliard Greene. Many visual artists lent their work to the project as well, including master quilter Nancy Gibson, artist/illustrator Tina Hoggatt, and sculptors Maureen O'Neill and Jim Smith.

Nancy is currently writing a one-woman play entitled A Work of Art. Inspired by the life of Monica Spooner-Jordan, the play explores the contours of work in the hands of an artist.