Chosen by the ISA as one of TOP 25 SCREENWRITERS TO WATCH IN 2018
work in progress
work in progress
After a long career as a working actor and theatre director, I founded a small professional theatre in Sedona, Arizona. One weekend while exploring the state, I literally waked right into the middle of NELLIE CASHMAN DAYS in Tombstone, Arizona. After doing some research I was astounded that I had never heard of this remarkable woman before, an Irish immigrant and gold miner who helped to settle the Wild, Wild West. I wrote my first bio-pic about Cashman, and the rest is history - literally. The following slideshow is a little bit about the people who inhabit the world of the LOST WOMEN OF AMERICAN HISTORY.
Lost Women of American History
Lost Women of American History
LOST WOMEN OF AMERICAN HISTORY is a series of scripted dramas about the women mysteriously missing from history. In a 9 week season, new heroines are introduced every three weeks: blizzards are fought, races are won, and stars are discovered, as ordinary women go to extraordinary lengths to shape America.
thank you!
2017 Vancouver International Women in Film Festival
thank you!
2017 Vancouver International Women in Film Festival
I am so grateful to have won Best Screenplay for MY OLD MAN. Writing this story was a labor of love. It is a character-driven drama about a 40-year-old widow on the verge of suicide who picks up a 99-year-old man hitchhiking. As their relationship unfolds, he helps her to live and she helps him to die, and along the way, wounds are healed and fences are mended. l believe this is a universal story, and my fingers are crossed that this story will make it to production.
how I fell in love with words - the back story
how I fell in love with words - the back story
My father was one of twelve children from a poor family in Kentucky who went on to become a State Representative. As a result, I am a cross between Honey Boo-Boo and Kate Middleton. I straddled two entirely different worlds growing up. One week I would be visiting my cousins and using the outhouse; the next week I would be eating in a five star hotel and meeting the governor.
At the age of 15, I was chosen to be a Goodwill Ambassador, and spent that summer touring Europe. Every day was an adventure: from narrowly escaping the Russian man in Prague who wanted to share his drink with me (my first!), to the day I was kicked off the train in Berlin because my middle initial did not appear on the list of names. It was frightening. And exhilarating. And in some way every place I visited, and every person I met, would eventually became part of my world as a writer.
My fascination with people translated into a passion for acting. I moved to New York and attended the prestigious Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, then made my living as an actor and director for fifteen years. I began to teach, and while working as an adjunct professor in Arizona, I founded a small theatre in Sedona, Arizona, where I honed my story-telling skills.
When that ended, I embraced my secret love of writing and applied to the NYU/Tisch MFA dramatic writing program. I graduated in 2012, after receiving the Charles Pupura Award for excellence, then moved to Los Angeles, where I continue to write about ordinary people who lead complicated lives. Currently I am working on a TV pilot about a hotshot poker player with a sixth sense who struggles to uncover the mystery of her missing best friend, while protecting her friend's eight-year-old-daughter.