"Medusa's Diary" by Rose-Mary Harrington

 – There isn’t an antidote for a Mamushi.

My mother repeats the snake episode. It is now six feet long.

Rose-Mary resides in Wilmington, North Carolina. Rose-Mary is a member of the Cape Fear Poetry and Prose Society and the Port City Playwrights Project. Her background is in theatre. Rose-Mary’s plays that have been performed all over the Unites States and Great Britain. In 2018 her full-length play Detained was produced by Up Theatre, New York. Rose-Mary was winner of the New Playwrights Project by Utah Shakespeare Company for her play Six Seconds. Rose-Mary is a life member of the Dramatists’ Guild. This is her first foray into short story writing.

Author’s Talk

Rose-Mary Harrington

As my story indicates I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain.  My background is theatre with a master’s degree in playwriting.  In 2019 I joined a women’s writing group in Wilmington, we meet monthly and select a prompt.  I find this gives me an incentive and time to conjure words.   I am also a member of the Cape Fear Poetry and Prose Society and the Port City Playwrights Project in Wilmington.  My life is devoted to writing plays.  My mother, an actress insisted I pursue writing because for five years in the 1970’s I lived in Japan.  During that time, I would send an air mail letter home to England every week.  My mother would read my epistles to family, friends, neighbors and the local milkman.  In her opinion I should forgo my drama school training.  I would ignore her suggestion by rolling my eyes.  Now I believe those two hundred and sixty letters stood me in good stead for my endeavors as a writer.  

I have lived in the Unites States of America for over half a century.  I know as I straddle the Atlantic, I possess a perception and pulse of the goings-on and culture of both nations.  Many of my plays are concerned with social justice.  My full-length play Detained received an equity production in New York in 2018.  Detained is concerned with one of the first family detention centers for immigrants in 2007.  I will probably sound trite when I acknowledge I usually write plays for those that don’t have a voice. 

I am inspired by my five muses and nine grand muses. They fill my life with consternation and joy. My family provides a wealth of material from which to draw.  

I know I will continue to hone my craft until I can no longer put pen to paper. — Rose-Mary Harrington