Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom (she/her) is an award-winning playwright, author, illustrator, and teaching artist who authored Fairy Tales for Sun-Kissed Women. As a world builder, Mallory’s passion for diverse representation, mindfulness, and mysticism resonates across the vast universe she weaves on the page, stage, and canvas. Windy City Reviews hailed her as a “craftsman of the English language” for her debut novel, Reasons for Being.
Mallory was the inaugural Sullivan Playwright-in-Residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a recipient of the 2022 Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, and a Chicago Dramatists Tutterow Fellow. She has also been a member of the Playwrights Unit through Goodman Theatre, where her work was showcased and developed through their Future Labs program and New Stages Festival. Mallory has lectured at the University of California-Davis, the University of Illinois-Chicago, Devil's Daughter Comedy, and Illinois Humanities. Her work was nurtured by The Story Theatre, Sideshow Theatre Company, The Athena Project, The New Coordinates, and Refracted Theatre Company.
Featured Artworks
Once in a Blue Moon. Winter 2020.
Fairy Tales for Sunkissed Women book cover. July 2024.
Once in a Bleu Moon Cast. Winter 2020.
(W)rites of Summer. July 2024.
Photo courtesy of The Story Theatre.
Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit Reading. Summer 2022