Debra Conner as Margaret Mitchell
Debra Conner is an Ohio native who has lived in Parkersburg, West Virginia since 1972. She holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Virginia and a MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. She is currently self-employed in the commercial advertising business. For over twenty years, she was an adjunct instructor in the English department of West Virginia University-Parkersburg. Also a poet, Conner conducts workshops and residencies in creative writing. She is part of the Ohio Arts Council's writer in residence program, and she has published an essay about that experience in “Teaching Writing from the Writer's Point of View,” which was published by the National Council of Teachers of English. In addition, her writing has appeared in publications such as The West Virginia Encyclopedia, Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry and Ohio Schools magazine.
Conner began her career as a Chautauquan portraying Emily Dickinson in 1997, thanks to a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then, she has added in-character portrayals of Zelda Fitzgerald, Margaret Mitchell, Margaret Blennerhassett and Rebecca Harding Davis to her character offerings. "It's my best chance to be a famous writer," she claims. She has performed for Humanities Councils in several states, including Maryland, Arkansas, Ohio and Virginia.