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Kos Kostmayer is an American born novelist, poet, playwright, and screenwriter. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and then turned to producing, directing and writing documentary films. He also wrote for the theater, and his award-winning play ON THE MONEY premiered in New York City in 1982 and then opened again in Los Angeles at the Victory Theatre Center. Kos quickly found work writing for television and film and was under contract first to Paramount Pictures and then to 20th Century Studios. Following a successful run as a screenwriter in Hollywood, Kos turned his attention entirely to poetry, plays, and novels. He now has four novels coming out from Dr. Cicero Books, beginning with the publication of FARGO BURNS and THE POLITICS OF NOWHERE in 2020. In 2021 Dr. Cicero Books will publish LOST RELIGION and THE AVENUE OF SAD DAYS. Kos has also completed two volumes of poetry, THE YEAR THE FUTURE DISAPPEARED and THE MARRIAGE BED, and is currently working on a novel – his fifth - and a new play. His plays have been seen in various forms in New York City, Los Angeles, Harare, Toronto, Berlin and at a number of colleges and universities. His work has been honored with the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, multiple Dramalogue Awards, Pick Of The Fringe at the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival, The Experimental Theater Prize (Purdue University), and the Otis L. Guernsey Prize in Drama from the Association of American Theater Critics. His work has been widely reviewed and praised by critics in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and elsewhere. Kos has a varied and extensive work history. He served for many years as Supervising Writer and Field Producer for Big Blue Marble, the Emmy Award-winning documentary educational TV show for children, and while working at Big Blue Marble he made a number of documentaries dealing with theater and its impact on young people. His poems have been published in a number of magazines, and his work has been translated into Swedish and German. In addition, he has written and produced numerous scripts for television and film, including I LOVE YOU TO DEATH, a Lawrence Kasdan film featuring Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman, William Hurt, Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix, Joan Plowright, James Gammon and Kos’ close friend Jack Kehler. Kos is married to the artist Martha Ferris, and he and his wife divide their time between their family farm in Mississippi and their home in the Hudson River valley. Personal Life: Kos was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1941. He spent his early years in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. His family moved to New York City in 1945, and Kos and his two brothers, Roger and Peter, were raised in and around New York City, where Kos attended both public and private schools. Kos has three children by his first marriage, which ended in divorce and continues in friendship. During the run of ON THE MONEY in Los Angeles Kos fell in love with Martha Ferris, an acclaimed artist whose work has been seen in museums, galleries, and public spaces around the country, and he and Martha have been happily married for 35 years. In addition to his three wonderful children – two daughters and a son – Kos has two splendid granddaughters, one a professional artist whose work has enjoyed considerable acclaim and the other an enormously gifted teacher working with autistic children in New York City. Career: Kos wrote his first play while tending bar in New York City, and his early plays and poems landed him screenwriting jobs for directors Frank Perry and Louis Malle. He also found work in television and became a supervising writer and field producer for a number of documentary TV shows, including Big Blue Marble, the Emmy Award-winning documentary educational TV show for children. While at Big Blue Marble Kos produced and directed short documentaries on The First All Children’s Theatre and the National Theatre of the Deaf. At Big Blue Marble he also had the pleasure of working closely with Richard Berman, an early mentor and lifelong friend with whom he continued to collaborate over the years. His play ON THE MONEY had its world premiere at St. Clement’s Theatre in New York City. After a series of revisions, ON THE MONEY subsequently opened in Los Angeles at the Victory Theater Center, whose artistic directors, Tom Ormeny and Maria Gobetti, played a powerful and entirely beneficent role in Kos’ development as a writer. He found a home at the Victory Theatre Center where Tom and Maria’s high artistic standards, coupled with their nurturing sensibilities, led to a lasting friendship and a series of beautifully realized productions of Kos’s work. Under Dana Elcar’s superb direction, and featuring a terrific cast that included James Gammon, Patricia Gaul, and Armin Shimmerman, ON THE MONEY opened to considerable acclaim, received rave reviews, ran for nine months to sold-out houses, collected multiple Dramalogue Awards and was named Best Play of the Year by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. The success of ON THE MONEY opened up an array of opportunities for Kos, who continued to write poetry and plays while completing the original screenplay for I LOVE YOU TO DEATH. His collaboration with Lawrence Kasdan, another early mentor, and lifelong friend, was a source of deep and lasting satisfaction for Kos, who went on to write THANKSGIVING, a second screenplay for Kasdan (never produced, unfortunately). Kos also developed THE HISTORY OF FEAR, a new play for the Victory Theater Center, brilliantly directed by Maria Gobetti and handsomely produced by Tom Ormeny, who also served as the show’s technical director.

In 1990, after the opening of I LOVE YOU TO DEATH, Kos and Martha moved from Los Angeles to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to live on the family farm where Martha was born and raised. Martha pursued her work as an artist – and did so to growing acclaim – winning commissions to complete a series of large scale public works and mounting a number of highly successful one-woman shows in New York, New Orleans, Jackson, Chicago and elsewhere. Guided by the strong and empathic hand of his friend and agent Judy Hofflund, Kos continued his career as a screenwriter, which afforded him a good living, for which he was extremely grateful. However, he became increasingly disillusioned with the Hollywood system and with the quality of his own work. Partly out of frustration, partly out of desire, and partly out of the hope that he had something more substantial to offer, Kos reached back to his original dreams – bearing in mind Delmore Schwartz’ belief that “In dreams begin responsibilities” – and turned his hand once again to novels, poems and plays. Over the course of the last 20 years, Kos has completed four novels, two new plays, and two volumes of poetry. He is currently working on his fifth novel and a new play. All four of his novels will be published by Dr. Cicero Books, whose founding partners, Carey Harrison and John M. Keller, have opened up a whole new world for Kos – a world rich with meaning, filled with books and the love of literature, devoted to the notion of artistic freedom, and shaped by the strictest possible standards. Although Kos has never been particularly good at math, he knows full well how to count his blessings, foremost among them his wife Martha, his three wonderful children – Gwen, Larry, and Sam – his two fantastic granddaughters – Jessie and Michelle – his remarkable brothers – Roger and Peter – his terrifically demanding and yet entirely supportive publishers – Carey Harrison and John Keller – and his and Martha’s large extended family and their many dear and wonderful friends.