“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
I’ve been a writer since I was knee-high to Mad Magazine, so my early scripts were short and funny. I’ve also been interested in stuff like ESP and psychic phenomena since I was a youngster. I even gave a talk on the paranormal back in the sixth grade. I got an A++ on it!
My career began in earnest at the famed Actors Theatre of Louisville where I had a boatload of 10-minute plays produced when I worked there in the Lit Dept. One of those plays was published by Sam French and is still produced to this day because it’s timeless and timely — Attack of the Moral Fuzzies.
When I moved to L.A. two big things happened. I started working in sitcoms (and sold scripts to Roseanne and Blossom), and I took a class in trance channeling.
After a few years, I wanted to work on meatier shows, so I switched to hour-long dramas. I was on such hits as Desperate Housewives and Ghost Whisperer as a producer’s assistant — and I got to pitch show ideas as well.
I then decided I wanted to get my own work out there (see the quote from Robert Lewis Stevenson above) so I co-wrote and co-produced the web series The Calamities of Jane and Shelby’s Vacation, my 40-minute lesbian dramedy. Both have gotten into a bunch of film festivals and won a boatload of awards.
Right now I’m focused on selling my two TV pilots: The Cleaning Crew (about a small hazmat team in L.A.) and The View from Above (mysterious crop circles appear in my home state of Indiana!).
My stage play career has continued concurrently with my TV work. I’ve had more than a dozen productions, including at such venues as the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the Rainbow Festival at Asbury Park, and Bloomington’s Blizzard of Short Plays. My favorite recent experience was with Denver’s Athena Project (which fosters women playwrights) where my play Handcrafted Healing had a production.
I’ve been a Sierra Club member in Los Angeles for many years and have led over 350 hikes with the Gay and Lesbian Serrians, which has awarded me “Sierran of the Year” four times. I’ve made it all the way to the top Half Dome in Yosemite (seen here) and Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states.
