Photograph by Nick Simpson

Lydia Stryk was born and grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, birthplace of barbed wire. She lived in London where she trained to be an actress and then in New York for over a decade before moving to Berlin where she lives in a bi-national relationship. She is the author of over a dozen full-length plays which have been produced across the United States, in Canada and in Germany. Two plays–American Tet and Lady Lay–were produced by the English Theatre Berlin. Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing and in German by Per Lauke Verlag and appear in numerous anthologies. American Tet is included in Acts of War: Iraq and Afghanistan in Seven Plays from Northwestern University Press. She also writes essays and cultural criticism and is currently working on a novel set in her hometown. For more, please visit her website.