My background is in film. I technically consider myself a filmmaker. I became an author by chance. Well, not really by chance. I write because I have to. It's kind of like going to the bathroom or being in love. You can try to hold it as long as you want, but eventually you just have to let it out. There's a certain joy that comes with that release. I have found it is better to write and let it out.
My influences are mostly film people like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Jack Benny, Looney Tunes, and the Muppets.
I would say that I also have a Billy Wilder influence. There is a wit to his work that I love.
I have sometimes been compared to Woody Allen, but I have never really seen his work. I think we just have some mutual influences, but he has never really influenced me. I'm just putting it out there.
I have also been influenced by some stories like Gone with the Wind, Vertigo, Atonement, and Cinema Paradiso.
I have been influenced by writers like Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. Other than that, I read a lot of non-fiction works, which is why I probably wrote a piece of fiction as if it were an autobiography.
Birth Place: Salem, MO USA
Accomplishments: As a teenager, I was accepted to the Governor's Summer Institute for Writers. My screenwriting was at the same level as the poets and fiction writers of my generation. That is quite an achievement.
I won Best Experimental at the 2007 Pumelo International Film Festival. I won the same title at the 2006 Bowling Green State University Film and Media Festival.
