Sunspot Literary Editor's Prize →

Thrilled to hear that Sunspot Lit has very kindly awarded me their 2019 Annual Edition Editor’s prize for my play, “Running on Moontime.” To read more about “Running on Moontime,” click HERE.

Synopsis: San Fernando Valley, winter of 2004. Sixteen year-old Maeve runs away from her group home in Lancaster, and falls into a relationship with an older man who claims to be the legendary, missing-from-the-scenes, rock 'n roll frontman, Axl Rose. Months later, a very-pregnant Maeve is determined to track down the "rock star", only to find him living in a two-bedroom tract home in Reseda with his emotionally unstable girlfriend, Missy. In a surreal, rainy-night encounter, the three characters confront one another as they struggle to distinguish fact from fiction, past from the present, and dream-life from waking reality.

Trailer for short film -- "Madame"

A teaser for a short film I wrote and directed, currently in post-production: Part Grimm’s Fairy Tale, part Borgesian riddle and part tone-poem, Madame is a black & white short about an old gangster lady and the miseducation of her young protÉgé.

Featuring the music of Cellista, aka Freeya Seeburger, courtesy of Juxtapositions.

awards at The Gibraltar Drama Festival

So proud and in awe of the amazing students at The Gibraltar Academy of Music & Performing Arts in Gibraltar, Spain, and their fearless leader Tanya Santini, who directed them in an award-winning production of my children’s play, “Befriending Bertha” (now translated into Spanish, “Conociendo a Bertha, by Ercilia Sahores.) Awards garnered at The Festival: Best Youth Actress, as well as nominations in the categories of Best Youth Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actress, AND Best Director!!! AMAZING WORK all around, such an honor to have artists like this breathe life into these characters and their story. And shout-out to the crew, too — that set is everything.

"REMOTE"

I wrote, directed, edited and shot this short on a Cannon T5i, one actress ( LA BELLE PAULETTE), one location. Budget: $0.

WE FINISHED THE PROJECT UNDER BUDGET AND AHEAD OF SCHEDULE :)

Thanks to the following folks at the CCSF film editing lab who taught me how to edit using Adobe Premiere Pro: Jason Halprin, Hanywei Ou, Jamie Sharp, Dan Olmstead, Anna Geyer, and the very patient Peter Menchini.

( 3:39 minutes).

https://vimeo.com/259112628

SYNOPSIS: A lonely octogenarian looks forward to a quiet night in front of the TV, but runs into difficulty when she can't recall how to work her remote.

Screen Shot 2019-10-26 at 9.54.31 AM.png

Paloma

A video portrait I shot of jewelry designer, lover, mother and all-around free spirit Paloma Defendini as she opens up about the Cuban nun who raised her, Puerto Rican roots, deconstructing the taboos around "Fresa" style, and her quest to synthesize spiritual and physical.

In English with Spanish subtitles.

http://www.stylesob.com Style SOB visits with jewelry and icon designer Paloma Defendini, currently based in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Originally from Puerto Rico, Paloma is a designer, a mother, a recent convert to salsa dancing, a spiritual seeker and organic gardener, and-as SOB soon found out-a vertible fount of magical, personal anecdotes, stories and wisdom!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2awxi8JeBF...

"Toxic Malibu: An Ode" appears in Fourth Genre

"So we go to the beach near Malibu and I’m like, Oh my God, this place is a poem. There’s the dead seal, washed up on the shore—freshly dead, I’m told by a German TV director who is with his wife and two young children, from toxins in the ocean. The toxins not only kill the seals, he informs me, but also make them incredibly aggressive, as if they have rabies. So they try to attack everyone, then keel over, dead. And I say, Oh, my God, if the toxins can kill seals, what about the people in the water—I mean, what about the surfers? And the TV director shrugs and says, Eh—the surfers are already crazy..."

To purchase Issue 19:2 of Fourth Genre, please visit http://msupress.org/journals/fg/?id=50-214-6.

Issue 19:2 due out this July, 2017

Issue 19:2 due out this July, 2017

Creative Nonfiction in FRON//TERA

I worked here! bellows the actor to the walls of the corridor, to all of us, to no one at all, at once tragic and debonair, his Spanish defiant and impassioned, his elocution crisp, his cadences pitch-perfect. I gave my blood on the stage of this very theater! My sweat, my tears! ¡Soy actor! ¡Soy artista! Why should I be denied entrance just because I’m without money…? 

 TO PURCHASE THE ISSUE, CLICK HERE

For more about Fron//tera, Un Revista Bilingue, please visit: http://www.fronteralit.com. 

New creative nonfiction appearing in Fron//tera, in their upcoming border-themed issue. Fron//tera is an English-Spanish bilingual literary magazine out of Madrid, Spain.

New creative nonfiction appearing in Fron//tera, in their upcoming border-themed issue. Fron//tera is an English-Spanish bilingual literary magazine out of Madrid, Spain.

RIVERTEETH: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction

My latest essay, "Blur," appears in the latest issue of Riverteeth, alongside writing by literary luminaries Andre Dubus III, Brenda Miller, and more.

“Those shoes danced so good. And she liked the color white. All the other girls would be wearing black, red, fluorescent pink, lime green. Sometimes purple. Turquoise, even. So there was a strange perversity to the color white in the darkness of those clubs. It kept her safe, even special, somehow.

White is the color of something untouched…”

 

To order volume 18.2 of the journal, click here, or purchase on KINDLE

 

GREEN READ at WILL GEER THEATRICUM BOTANICUM

With SoCal actors Sheridan Crist, Antonio Perez de la Cruz, Judy Durkin, Eben Eldridge, Katherine Griffith, Bill Hunt, Jordan Klomp, Kelvin Morales, Jackie Nicole & Daniel Ramirez. A huge thank you to the actors and to Jennie Webb for including the piece in the Botanicum's SEEDLINGS NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT.

Daniel Ramirez & Anntonio Perez de la Cruz 

Daniel Ramirez & Anntonio Perez de la Cruz 

Sheridan Crist & Bill Hunt 

Sheridan Crist & Bill Hunt 

Judy Durkin, Kelvin Morales, Antonio Perez de la Cruz

Judy Durkin, Kelvin Morales, Antonio Perez de la Cruz

Bill Hunt & Eben Eldridge

Bill Hunt & Eben Eldridge

Jackie Nicole, Sheridan Crist & Jordan Klomp

Jackie Nicole, Sheridan Crist & Jordan Klomp

Jackie Nicole & Daniel Ramirez

Jackie Nicole & Daniel Ramirez

Judy Durkin, Kelvin Morales, Antonio Perez de la Cruz

Judy Durkin, Kelvin Morales, Antonio Perez de la Cruz

Katherine Griffith & Jackie Nicole

Katherine Griffith & Jackie Nicole

STYLE SOB (BÉA AARONSON, ARTIST)

Meet Béa Aaronson, artist, actress and activist. Originally from Paris, Béa makes her home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she creates art and lectures about art history at her Oasis d'Art, La Casa Verde. 

For more about Béa, visit her website: http://www.artcasaverde.com/bea-aaronson/

Davidson College in North Carolina

So honored that my play for young actors, “BEFRIENDING BERTHA,” is slated to be part of the Spring One-Act Series at Davidson College!

Cody Harris as Charlie and Ally DeMarco as Bertha in BEFRIENDING BERTHA, directed by Aubrey Caldwell

Cody Harris as Charlie and Ally DeMarco as Bertha in BEFRIENDING BERTHA, directed by Aubrey Caldwell