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I was a lonely child in a neighborhood bereft of kids. I had crayons but I possessed no concept of art. My hands refused to color in between lines nor did they commit to drawing a proper animal, person, or monster. I could, however, see these things in my head quite clearly. So I began to draw with words. Making up fantasies became a thing I did as opposed to a discipline I sought out until I was in college. I’d elected to take filmmaking courses but quickly found that I simply enjoyed the writing portion above and beyond the rest.

My background in genre began as a fan and my father indulged my curiosity for all things horror. This started as it does with most people my age, by watching horror movies. Universal Studios and Hammer horror films were the entry way and then off to the literary works of Stephen King and Lovecraft, followed by the more intense pleasures of Clive Barker and Poppy Z. Brite then a slow discovery of classic works, like “The King in Yellow” and M.R. James’ antiquary haunts.

I’ve never worked solely as a writer. Instead, I’ve always been a person who works but writes on the side.

All of the fiction I’ve had published is horror-centric. My first short story was homage to Shirley Jackson’s more psychological ghosts. The follow-up to that was styled closer to M.R. James and his trope of unleashing hell on the unenlightened and unobservant. The last short that saw publication was a stab at something a little more visceral, psychosexual, with a monster that was front and center.

I did a lot of work as a professional reader in Los Angeles, acting as a gatekeeper to managers and producers looking for viable projects to turn into films or television shows. I did this for two different representation companies and a production company. I read countless screenplays, books, and articles during these periods. Hollywood is a town that thrives on genre pictures so naturally the bulk of my work entailed working within genre, its tenets and theories. That being the case, it was in my best interest to keep abreast of the inner workings of multiple genres, their structures, and characters. Perhaps the greatest advantage to this line of work was that it taught me to keep a sharp eye out for cliché. The idea that there are no “new” stories to tell may be true, but there is almost always a new way to spin a story. I looked for that in what I read and I continue to look for that in my own work.

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