Tripwire Harlot Press is excited to announce the release of before you go: an Offering (2025) by Sharon Bridgforth. Brigforth’s work will accompany Migdalia Cruz's play collection The Impossible Plays of Migdalia Cruz (2024) in Tripwire Harlot’s second Sledgehammer Series. "I am honored and deeply grateful to have this very personal work held and nourished by the Sledgehammer family. This frees me to root in my true intentions for the work, with Joy. " says Sharon Bridgforth. "My Sledgehammer book, before you go: an Offering, queerly explores a daughter's relationship with her aging mother as she seeks to understand, hold and heal the love that she feels for her. The piece is made of poems/prayers/letters and dreams between the mother and daughter, and journaling prompts - all of which serve as an invitation for those that receive the work to engage in their own healing rituals for themselves and their loved ones."
The Sledgehammer Series publishes playwrights who have been under-published in volumes that combine visual art with performative text to create a theatrical experience on the page. The first Sledgehammer Series includes Rarities & Wonders: Plays by Phillip Howze, Doodles from the Margins: Three Plays by Hansol Jung, and Plays by Christina Anderson. They are available wherever books are sold.
• • • • • •
BIOS
Inducted in the Texas Institute of Letters in 2025, Sharon Bridgforth is an Associate Company Member at Pillsbury House + Theatre, a Doris Duke Performing Artist, recipient of Yale's Windham Campbell Prize in Drama, the Playwrights' Center Core Membership, McKnight National Fellowship and the USA Artist Fellowship. A touring artists since 1991, she has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network. A New Dramatists Alum and recent MAP Fund Scaffolding for Practicing Artists Coach, Sharon's dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/The Show is streaming on the Twin Cities PBS platform. 53rd State Press published bull-jean & dem/dey back in 2022 and will release a collection of Sharon's performance texts titled, From The Marrow, in 2026. Sharon's work is featured in: Volume 110, No. 4, Winter 2022 of The Yale Review; Teaching Black, The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature; Mouths of Rain an Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought; Feminist Studies Vol 48 Number 1, honoring 40 years of This Bridge Called by Back and But Some of Us Are Brave! More at sharonbridgforth.com!
Migdalia Cruz, the 2023 DGF Legacy Playwright, is a Bronx-born playwright, lyricist, translator, and librettist with over 60 works performed in 150 venues across 40 cities in 12 countries. Her awards include the NEA, McKnight, NYSCA, and TCG/Pew, and she was named the 2013 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright. Cruz's mentor María Irene Fornés and her residency at Latino Chicago shaped her career. She co-chaired the DGF Playwriting Fellows, mentors the Latinx Playwrights' Circle and is an alumna of New Dramatists.
Keep an eye out for other announcements about our upcoming writers and their projects here and in our social media!