Using imagined worlds to make the present more visible.
Linds Esch is a Minneapolis-based writer, actor, and director whose work moves between speculative fiction, film, and theatre.
She holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Southern California and degrees in Economics and Philosophy from Oregon State University. Her short film KEVIN—which she wrote, directed, and performed in—screened at the San Diego International Film Festival, Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, and Oregon Short Film Festival, where it won Best Dark Comedy.
She is currently revising the YA science-fiction novel Sector 42, developing Thieves City, and performing as Nina in The Seagull with The Modern Rep.
Stories about people navigating systems larger than themselves.
My work is drawn to technology, economics, ideology, labor, identity, and social power, but the emotional center remains human: the need to belong, to choose, to be recognized, to find purpose, and to remain connected.
I write speculative fiction not primarily to predict the future, but to examine the present. When the world feels incoherent, exaggeration and altered realities can express that feeling more accurately than realism alone.
One practice, several forms.
Economics and philosophy give me frameworks for thinking about value, freedom, power, and the systems people construct. Acting grounds those questions in behavior, contradiction, emotional truth, and human need. Directing asks me to shape those ideas visually and collaboratively.
University of Southern California · 2023
Oregon State University · 2019
Available for creative collaboration and representation.
I am building a creative practice in which writing, performance, and directing continually change how I understand each field.