Actress Maylynne Lowe has taken on a new role — screenwriter.

Known for her work on local soap opera Royal Palm Estate, where she played one of the show’s lead characters, Tanya Blackburn, for 11 years, Lowe has also had an impressive career as a theatre actor and has also done work in the visual arts. She has won several awards including the 2011 Actor Boy award for Best Actress in a Lead Role in the play White Witch, and most recently debuted as a screenwriter with the short Boy, Girl and All the Rest.

“I had always written short stories and novellas, mostly in my spare time and, during the pandemic and lockdowns my creative writing accelerated a bit because I had not been acting. Real life is often never as exciting as the imagination,” she mused while also crediting her own real-life experiences with kindling her new passion in writing for the screen.

Boy, Girl and All the Rest is a survivor’s story directed and produced by Nadean Rawlins, which was one of four projects recently selected for the Spotlight Shorts JA initiative coordinated by the Jamaica Film and Television Association (JAFTA) in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and produced by local film-makers . This initiative aimed at addressing gender-based violence and showcased submissions from four teams of Jamaican film-makers and writers.

Lowe describes her work as someone’s fight for survival in a society that wants them dead.

“ Boy, Girl and All the Rest tells the real-life story of a non-binary individual’s abuse as a child, their mother’s reaction to their rape, and how they came into themself and their sexuality. [It] is a heartbreaking tale of someone’s secret, hidden, taboo, trauma. I wanted to help to shine a light on it and hold up a torch to this topic that is shrouded regarding gender-based violence in Jamaica with women and children.”

Also, a dancer, painter and visual artist, Lowe is excited about writing being the latest addition to her creative arsenal, especially during her 40s and a new stage in her life.

“I love the balance between writing and acting,” she shares,

“Writing is a whole new way of communicating and is introverted. I made a profession of being in the limelight and it is different from my life as an actor. I am determined to be passionate about it and look forward to learning along the way and applying for film labs. I have a 10-minute short film screenplay that is my baby and tons of stories and drafts for further development.”

It seems that the film industry can look forward to more from Lowe, since being bitten by the screenwriting bug, she described it as a ‘burning passion’ and while acting remains her first love, writing will be the next act to follow.