Bess Welden is a playwright, performer, and theater educator living and creating in her adopted home state of Maine. She founded Death Wings Project in 2021 which offers creatively compassionate art-making and storytelling programs about loss and grief. Her play, Death Wings, won the 2020 Maine State prize of the Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights and was co-produced in Maine by Dramatic Repertory Company, The Theater Project, and Meetinghouse Arts in 2023. Her play Madeleines won the 2022 National Jewish Playwriting Contest and will premiere at Portland Stage in March 2025. Bess was a 2022 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow for her work at the intersection of art and social change. She recently served as Playwright-In-Residence for the 2024 Maine Playwrights Festival. She teaches theater at Colby College.