Debra Leigh Scott received her M.A. in fiction in 2001. The title of her thesis was Vargas Girls and After. Her stories have been published in River City Magazine, The Chattahoochee Review, The Abiko Quarterly, and The Oxford American. She received a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts for her fiction in 2003. Her novel, Piety Street, was a finalist in the novel-in-progress category in the 2004 Faulkner Competition. Her play, Swan, is in development with Philadelphia Theatre Workshop. Her short story “What We Love,” was performed at "Writing Aloud" at the InterAct Theatre in 2006. "What We Love" was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006. Her full-length musical, Zeitflamme, was written and performed through a grant from the Institute for Arts and Humanities Education in 2003. A Play of Tales, a full-length children’s musical was written and performed through a grant from Young Audiences of New Jersey in 2003. She is the Founding Director of Hidden River Arts, a non-profit literary arts organization in Philadelphia, which offers supports and services to creative writers and playwrights.