Kay Kestner
Poet, Screenwriter, Playwright, Literary Journal Editor, Writing Workshop Host, Tarot Enthusiast.
About
Born on the full moon, Kay’s writing styles are in as much opposition to each other as her sun in Taurus and moon in Scorpio.
Her work can unapologetically dive into the secrets and shadow selves beneath the moon. In features with such themes, she often employs nonlinear stories, shifting timelines, back-and-forth sequences, and flashbacks.
Yet, she is just as comfortable writing 9-act, heart-healing, Holiday TV movies.
Her imagination for storytelling began early. From the ages of four to eight, she spent her out-of-school time working with her mother in the family’s deli. Spending her play-breaks in the stockroom alone, she dreamt up plays using checker pieces as characters and the supply table as a stage.
In her teens, she took her first screenwriting class. Interestingly, it was offered through the public school system in a county in Virginia where movie theaters were banned for fear they would “corrupt the minds of the kiddies.”
She is a happy fur Mom to a formerly abused rescue dog named Julie. Both mother and fur child want to hide when there’s a thunder and lightning storm outside. And given Julia’s age of 9 and Kay’s age of fifty(something), you could say the two are navigating their way together through a sometimes tiring, often chaotic, yet always a soul-growing midlife crisis.
Experience
Poetry:
Kay is the founder and editor of Poetry Breakfast , an international online literary journal that publishes a nourishing new poem each morning. She envisions the journal as a sort of “literary soup kitchen” that connects us to our collective humanity through poetry. She has been the editor since its first beginnings in 2011 and continues to run all aspects of the journal.
Kay has shared her knowledge and love of poetry by leading workshops at the Water Witch Writing Series and the NJ Poetry and Arts Barn.
Her poetry has recently been published in the UK’s Amethyst Review and Seclouth Station, Australia’s Otoliths and Burrow, and the US’s Soup Can Magazine Issue #6 and Anti-Heroin Chic.
Screenwriting:
For two years, Kay co-hosted a weekly screenwriting accountability group where participants gave feedback on ten-page reads, brainstormed ideas, workshopped loglines, and practiced verbal pitches.
She was a script reader for two seasons of the Big Apple Film Festival.
Kay was a Semifinalist in the 2024 RespectAbility Entertainment Labs.
In 2022-2023, Kay’s screenplay, BEHIND HER REFLECTION, which aims to increase understanding and acceptance of autism placed in several competitions, including The Big Apple Film Festival and ReelHeART International Film Festival, among others.
Her screenplay, ART NEVER LIES, was a 2022 finalist in the Bigfoot in Collaboration with Trinity College Dublin Screenwriting Contest and is a Quarter Finalist (still in the running) in the ISA Great Pitch Competition.
Kay’s screenplays have authentically and compassionately tackled issues of trauma. She never hesitates to delve into the raw reality of dealing with emotional challenges.
She also shares her softer, nurturing side by writing Holiday and G-rated TV movies that warm the heart, remind us of what is truly dearest to us, and heal our sorrows in a gentle and lighthearted way.
Playwriting:
During 2023, Kay chose to focus on a childhood dream of hers to become a playwright. She wrote a few short plays and a full-length solo play called EUCHARIST MOON.
She directed a staged reading of EUCHARIST MOON in October 2023, featuring a performance by actor and LGBTQIA+ activist Ali Longo.
Fiction Writing:
Her short story “Pink Frosting,” depicting the struggles of a single mother facing food insecurity, was published in 2022 in the Australian-based literary anthology, Appointment at 10:30, under her full name Kirstin Ann Kestner.
Non-Fiction Writing:
She has worked as a Content Creator and Blogger for the New Egypt Market Village where she interviewed shop owners and created compelling stories about the shops and people who run them for use on the market’s website and in promotional materials.
Kay also contributed several articles and interviews to the Endometriosis Association Newsletter while she was running a local support group for others, like herself, who were coping with a diagnosis of endometriosis.
Kay Kestner 