"These tattered texts remind me that I'm not merely a craftsman-for-hire; I may even (on my best days) be an artist. When I wrote them, I bled, and so I own them. They are my property."

From

What does Guild membership mean to you
Doug Wright

The Dramatist-November/December 2012

"I don't have a sprawling home, or even a single cabana abutting my non-existent pool. But I do have one tiny shelf in my office of the plays I've penned. Each word in them is genuinely mine; their collective vision sprang from the demons locked inside my feverish little brain. No one may change a word of text without my permission. Every director, actor and designer hired is subject to my approval. I am the only writer credited on each title page. These scripts exist simultaneously in two worlds: that of the theater, of course, which is highly collaborative, but also the land of literature, which is fiercely individual and idiosyncratic, where authorial voices are as distinct, as singular, as thumbprints or strands of DNA, where writers aren't rewarded for being "team players" but are valued instead for their eccentricities, their singularity, and their stubbornness in resolutely expressing their own hard-won, uncompromised truths. These tattered texts remind me that I'm not merely a craftsman-for-hire; I may even (on my best days) be an artist. When I wrote them, I bled, and so I own them. They are my property.

That is the one, incalculable reward of being a playwright: you are the CEO of your own imagination. The Dramatists Guild was founded to protect this essential principle, one that is (regrettably) always under siege. The Guild exists to protect my talent; not to exploit it. In its vigilant embrace, I can write unfettered with the reassurance that the worlds I create will always belong to me; I will never be forced to "cave." And that beats the hell out of a pool."