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Winner L.A.A.F. 2022

Silver Award for first time animation screenwriter feature.  www.laafest.com 

  Winner Best  Screenplay

Austin Comedy Film Festival May 2022

www.voodooqueen.info for 5 minute clip

Winner Best Shot Screenplay 

Oaxaca International Film Festival 2018.

Winner Best TV Series 

Portland Comedy Film Festival 2018.

Winner Best Short Screenplay 

Atlanta Comedy  Film Festival 2018

Winner Best Screenplay

Irvine International Film Festival 2021

Runner Up Short Films

Action On Film Megafest 2021  

 https://youtu.be/XvU2AIfWZWE

A man comes into the agency and requests the agency take his multi-million advertising account. The man resembles a stereotypical accountant but claims he is the devil. 

Recently revised.

Illustration by Len Bethel.

A comedy based upon a mother’s love of an eccentric daughter immersed in art, greed and prejudice.  

Received Panelist Favorite Award from the late Michael Warren Powell at the Last Frontier Playwriting Festival.

www.voodooqueen.info

 Vincent Van Gogh's masterpiece is featured in my new play, Hearing Art. The play was read in August by the talented actors under the direction of the talented director, Danielle Wirsansky at White Mouse Productions, Florida State University.  Thank you for the positive feedback and outstanding reading. 

An aspiring writer discovers there is more comedy in relationships than on stage when he takes eight strong, passionate women to Canada’s Stratford Festival during a ten year search for love.  

Men in a support group share two problems: their inability to sustain healthy relationships with women and career frustration. They purchase a bankrupt radio station in a small Alabama town and convert it to a self-help, talk format. 

Recently revised.

 A madcap spoof of advertising, incorporating ASL (American Sign Language) highlights gender bias, racial inequality and the marketing of esoteric products.  

Music transcribed, Buffalo Guitar Quartet.

 Father and daughter argument over his weekly blog that includes his daughter's declaration  she may be "80 Percent Lesbian." 

 A traveling salesman checks into a famous NYC hotel to encounter the ghost of  a famous poet. 

Winner Best Screenplay at the recent Irvine International Film Festival.   

Jim Crow hysteria draws thousands to a southern town seeking vengeance on seven African American tenant farmers accused of butchering a landowner, wife, and small children. The human and inhuman side of people and an unsolved mystery. Based on real events.

What happens when the military industrial complex’s design of the ultimate fighting creature escapes, multiplies and enslaves humans? Animated Sci-Fi with Music.

Recently completed as a feature screenplay .

Comedy.   

A strike at the hottest Latin Soap Opera forces the hiring of scab writers, actors, director, producer and makeup artists who really don’t speak Spanish. 

Recently completed as screenplay.

A man comes into the agency and requests the agency take his multi-million advertising account. The man resembles a stereotypical accountant but claims he is the devil. 

.

Comedy.   

A comedy based upon a mother’s love of an eccentric daughter immersed in art, greed and prejudice. 

Comedy.  A grieving, cartoonist husband unknowingly transforms his deceased wife’s muslin dolls into zany Samaritans who talk to each other but not to Doll Man, while discovering friendship, culture, and trouble in Mexico. 

Comedy with a message. 

Genie Says, WHAT?  created for the Easterseals Film Challenge   We filmed and edited the short, in four days, per the contest rules, thanks to our talented editor and camera person, Robert Proctor. 

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/XvU2AIfWZWE

Comedy. What happens in this farce when Richard I, Richard II and Richard III return to modern time to sue William Shakespeare? 

I used to take my daughter, Lisa, to Central Park on Sundays. On the return train back to the Bronxville Station (we actually lived in Yonkers, a fourth floor walkup) a vendor would walk up and down the aisles. I don't think he had a license. Who knows? He would yell out, "Ice Cream! Ice cream! There will be no more food served on this train."

SCABS was developed into a feature screenplay. Awards were for the short screenplay. 

REPOSITION was also recently completed from a revised stage play into a feature screenplay. Both completed during during the past nine months.

 Illustration from commuting and business characters. 

Took me a ride on a commutin' train

everyone looked alike and dressed the same...(More in manuscript, Commutin' Train). Song also used in first play, Terrarium Earth. Fourth-story walkup in Yonkers (Bronxville Station) when I worked for JWT, then the world's largest ad agency.

Began career at J. Walter Thompson Advertising in New York and Chicago. Joined The Mentholatum Company as Marketing Director and member of the Executive Committee. Obtained MBA from University of Buffalo at nights while working as Marketing Director at the  Mentholatum Company. After receiving my MBA, I left corporate world to write full-time. Worked with the late NYC agent Glen Cowley on humor manuscript, MBA Guidebook.  Negotiating with Little Brown for advance when comparable book hit market. Learned a lesson: sent entire manuscript to several publishers a year before signing with agent.

Started business, Freelance Network working with freelancers in North America. Joined a client, Greater Buffalo Press, later Sullivan Graphics and then American Graphics. 

Left corporate world  again to write (a creative-non-fiction historical novel) that is now a screenplay, Picnik. Worked with the late Toni Mendez in NYC on humor book, Political Folksay  with artist Steve Sweny. Wrote first play that received recognition, JoJo Mama & The Voodoo Queen. Taught at colleges and universities while writing, leaving academia July 2016 to write  full-time.

• BS and MA Journalism, University of Alabama. 
• After leaving corporate world again, participated in the Alabama Writer's Project (Poetry and Short Story Courses)  studied under Marlin Barton (O'Henry Prize Winner) and poet, Peter Huggins. 
• Moved to Tallahassee and participated in classes with Bob Shacochis and Janet Burroway at Florida State University. 
• Attended workshops at Last Frontier Conference and Dramatist Guild in New York and LA. 
• MBA degree in Buffalo when I simultaneously developed humor manuscript, MBA Guidebook, while attending classes.
• Participated in Dramatist Guild Master Playwriting Course 2018.
• Completed Roland Tech's Songwriting Circle 2018. 
• Completed Sundance Collab Basic TV Writing Course and Sci-Fi Writing Course 2020 and 2021.

Board member of The Peyton Tuthill Foundation. Provides scholarships to students who've lost a family member to homicide.   www.peytontuthillfoundation.org  

Instructor for study abroad programs for FSU in Spain, London and China. Later, program director for Tallahassee Community College study abroad programs in Tianjin, China. Traveled to China for over ten years.

Honorary Professor Tianjin Foreign Studies University

Some ASL, minimal Mandarin and elementary Spanish

Dramatist Guild, Playwrights Guild of Canada.