Cori Thomas
Playwright/Screenwriter/Author
Cori Thomas is an award winning Writer who has experience writing in a variety of formats. She is thrilled to have developed a supportive audience across genres. Check out some of her featured writings, press mentions and author info below.
Cori Thomas
Available Now
PRAISE
“As someone who has worked with trafficking survivors in the developing world, I am struck by how vividly Kruzan’s memoir shows us how easily these same atrocities take place, barely noticed, beneath the sophisticated veneer of life in the U.S. A brilliant and illuminating read.”—Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and author of Mighty Be Our Powers.
“I Cried to Dream Again is a must-read for anyone interested not only in the injustice of Juvenile Life Without Parole sentence but also in the strength of the human spirit. Kruzan’s memoir grips you from its first intense pages and keeps you there through the twists and turns of her rollercoaster story.”—Ian Manuel, author of My Time Will Come.
“What’s so striking about Sara Kruzan’s devastating story is how thoroughly the adults in her young life failed her. Kruzan, together with the acclaimed playwright Cori Thomas, brings you into the world of trafficking from the child victim’s standpoint and provides astonishing insight into the much-misunderstood sex trade in America.”—Laura Day, author of Practical Intuition.
“What is perhaps most extraordinary about Sara Kruzan’s memoir is its demonstration that a human being who has undergone the most horrendous trauma at an unimaginably young age can still evoke the child within her: to transform her prison cell into an afternoon at the ice-skating rink, or a day at the beach—and to bring her incarcerated friends on the joyride with her. I Cried to Dream Again is a vital account of hard truths, a battle cry for justice, and an anthem to hope.”—Kia Corthron, author of Moon and the Mars and The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
“A testament to both the capricious nature of the American criminal justice system and the power of hope, Kruzan’s book, co-written by Thomas, is a harrowing and eye-opening account . . . A must-read for parents, civil servants, and activists.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred).
When January Feels Like Summer
Five characters stumble toward the possibilities of being seen, being heard and being loved one unusually warm January day in Harlem. Devaun and Jeron are two young African-American men who are looking to earn respect in the neighborhood. Nirmala Singh and her brother, Ishan, run a small neighborhood grocery store. Nirmala's husband, Prasad, has been in a coma for three years after a robbery gone wrong. She can't bring herself to pull the plug even though his doctors say there is no hope for recovery. Ishan desperately wants gender reassignment surgery so he can transition to female and change his name to Indira. He wants Nirmala to pull the plug and cash in Prasad's million-dollar life insurance to fund his surgery. After Devaun is inappropriately solicited in a store by a man from the neighborhood, he and Jeron decide to take matters into their own hands and warn the neighborhood. Their door-to-door poster campaign brings them into the store and into the lives of Nirmala and Indira, as Ishan now calls herself. Indira has recently quit her accounting job to start a dating service. Her first attempt at matchmaking is with Joe, a lonely neighborhood sanitation worker with a crush on Nirmala. Joe lives alone, eating ice cream and afraid to hope for love after the breakup of his marriage. Nirmala, who had a loveless marriage with Prasad, is afraid to hope to ever be in love. Devaun, meanwhile, is smitten with pre-op Indira and eventually ends up on a date with her. By the end of the play, these five characters are living proof that everyone deserves love.
