I found out I was gay at a Christian performing arts camp. I was thirteen years old, smack-dab in the middle of Amish Country, PA, and all of a sudden, I had to become an adult—because all of the adults in my life didn't know what to do with me. But don't worry, because within a few months, I discovered the TV show LOST. And something about it—perhaps the show's characters "coming out" with their own shames and secrets, well—
It became my first dangerous obsession, because it led to my career.
Now I'm a TV writer living and working in Los Angeles. I write high-concept drama and dark comedy with an inclination for complex queer characters, coming-of-age stories, and the surprisingly vibrant queer world before Stonewall.
And no, I am not Amish.
OTHER OBSESSIONS
The ongoing feud over Vertically-Aligned Nanotube Array (VANTA) Black
Hell-bent high school show choirs (personal experience)
The contemporary high art world and all its absurdity
9/11 (I was in third grade)
Pre-Stonewall queer life (expertise: Victorian era, Pansy Craze, Harlem Renaissance through the 1940s)
The effects of Silicon Valley, social media, and tech company insanity
CREDITS
*UNANNOUNCED MINI-ROOM* (2023)
~ staff writer ~
FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC: THE ORIGIN (2022)
Lifetime / A&E Studios
~ staff writer ~
“Part 3: The Murderer”
~ teleplay by / television story by ~
BH90210 (2019)
FOX / CBS Studios
episode 4: “The Table Read”
~ written by ~
JANE THE VIRGIN (2019)
The CW / CBS Studios
~ writers’ assistant ~
DEVELOPMENT
FAIRY TOWN (2024)
~ developed for television by / written by ~
based on the book The Boys of Fairy Town: Sodomites, Female Impersonators, Third-Sexers, Pansies, Queers, and Sex Morons in Chicago’s First Century by Jim Elledge
PageBoy Productions / Mary Grace Productions
director: John Krokidas
showrunner: Paul Sciarrotta
After the Italians take out the heads of Chicago's German outfit in a bloodbath, the German boss' closeted son takes the family business in a dangerous new direction as World War II descends upon the city.
HIT (podcast, 2021)
~ created by ~
Wondery / Amazon Music
A scripted audio drama set in the world of an elite high school show choir, centering on the intense mentorship that forms between a failed Broadway hopeful and her teenage protégé—whom she pushes to the brink. Years later, he tries to pick up the pieces of what really happened and how it tore their isolated community apart.