Patty MacDonald is a writer and playwright whose storytelling is sometimes painstaking, but always purposeful. She wrote and produced two original plays—The Day of the Sun and Motion to Dismiss—at the historic Redwood Playhouse. She has recently completed This Is Not a Crime Story: A Memoir, a meditation on friendship, justice, and the echoes of an unsolved crime. Throughout the process, she blogged about the tender, chaotic moments—the dead ends, small revelations, and grief—that returned to her as she worked.