Hi, I'm Kestral.

Author. Playwright. Professional overthinker.

Queer, vibrant, and quietly furious — that’s the thread running through the stories, plays, songs, and poems I write. Most of them live in the cracks between genres and systems: emotional, political, digital. The work is shaped by a background in psychotherapy training, tech leadership, and a lifelong habit of asking “but why though?” at inconvenient moments. My characters are often tangled in networks, relationships, dreams, and feedback loops — much like the rest of us.

Softness feels like a form of resistance. Laughter works as a pressure valve. The small, easily missed details often turn out to matter most. I’m drawn to the unspoken, the sidelong glance, the moment that says more than the plot ever could. Stories, I think, should leave a mark, not a scar — and maybe they’re one of the few ways we get to practise being better humans. Or at least stranger, kinder ones.

This newsletter is where you’ll find updates on upcoming works, but also snippets of plays and poems, drafts, deleted scenes, and various other things that I find in my waste paper basket.