Growing up in the New England stage community, I studied writing, directing, dramaturgy, and design before giving up the theaters of Western Massachusetts for the challenges of Los Angeles.

Over the intervening years, I’ve witnessed Hollywood's financial and ethical abuses up close and personal. I’ve had the honor of working side-by-side with personal heroes like David Lynch, Laura Dern, and a disproportionate number of Star Trek cast members.

While many of my pet projects are united by an interest in science fiction, fantasy, and other forms of worldbuilding, my real passion as a screenwriter is challenging and empowering actors to grow as performers.
Giving a director and a cast the tools and support to do their very best work is a screenplay’s only measure of excellence.

My uncompromising eye for structure and specificity inspires producers, actors, and directors to rely on me. No matter what genre you work in, you can also count on me for that.

In 2013, I was struck in the head with a sword during a stunt sequence on a colleague’s web series. Fighting my way back from traumatic brain injury, a host of quite literally crippling symptoms and the anonymity of disability has only renewed my faith in the fundamentals of our craft and the necessity of a strong showbusiness community.
Most of our decisions are made by habit, and building solid habits can make our path to success unassailable.

Many years ago, I moved from Santiago, Chile, to L.A. to pursue my passion—screenwriting. I studied a lot (I’m a study nerd) and have degrees in Linguistics & Literature, Screenwriting, Development, and Producing. These degrees have given me a well-rounded education in multiple aspects of filmmaking, which I apply to my writing.

I always thought I would just write scripts. But while in grad school, I started working at Sony Pictures and discovered a whole new area of screenwriting I knew little about, and that became incredibly interesting to me: development. I realized I have a passion and the skills to help writers develop their stories and elevate them to the best possible level—while remaining true to the essence of the story they want to tell.

I worked my way up from reader to story analyst, script consultant, and then script doctor, and I honestly enjoy helping writers take their work to the next level and be part of their stories' evolution. That same passion also drove me to want to teach screenwriting and share my knowledge and the skills I’ve learned working in the industry with new and aspiring writers.

I also have a knack for structure, both for features and TV, and I love helping writers restructure their work to make those turning points all about character development and, thus, more potent. At the end of the day, stories are all about watching interesting, unique characters change and evolve. And I approach this by giving writers actionable, tangible suggestions. I believe it’s not just about pointing out what’s not working in a story—it’s all about making suggestions that can be applied to the script to elevate it, always while staying true to the writer’s vision.

My biggest passion is helping and mentoring new writers. Coming from a small town in Canada with nothing to do but go to the theater made me fall in love with the magic of the movies, especially these days, that wonderful medium of television.

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be the one who created those worlds out of nothing. But because of where I lived, there were little to no resources, and access to Hollywood was almost impossible. I know what it’s like to get to that wall, find a way to climb it, fight to get over it, and stay on the other side.

I read all the books, studied all the screenplays, watched all the courses, and attended all the pitch seminars and conferences… but I always found it lacking that personal connection. I always wished I had access to a mentor—someone who’s been there, a fellow creative, someone with the same type of soul as mine who longed to tell stories in only the way movies and TV can.

There is also something magical about helping another writer reach that epiphany-type moment where they finally get it, where it clicks, and where their excitement just can’t be contained. Being a part of that is very special and truly important to me.

Some writers are great at writing, but not great teachers. Not everybody can explain the deeper workings of what makes a screenplay effective. But some people can, and the feedback and relationships I have grown through mentoring tell me that I can consistently help writers cross that plane.
I love being a champion to writers, especially those who match my passion for this magical beast we call a screenplay. It’s what feeds my soul.

One of the best sayings that describe how I approach my work with writers is, “If you’ve been lucky enough to reach a level of success in this business, you have an obligation to send the elevator back down.”

I didn’t know a single soul when I arrived in Los Angeles. I had no idea how to achieve my dream of being in the entertainment business, but boy, did I have big dreams. My journey hasn’t been linear. It’s been a series of missed opportunities followed by amazing strokes of luck and sheer force of will—sometimes all of those things on the same day.

It’s important to me to share my positive experiences and also my mistakes with a new crop of writers because I wish I had that same opportunity when I was new in the business. But services like Script Reader Pro weren’t available then. It was an expensive film school or bust. So I learned by trial & error… heavy on the error.
I want to save the writers I work with from that same heartache so that they can make their opportunities count. So that when they get a shot at the big break, they are prepared and have the confidence that honing your craft brings.

I’ve done every aspect of film production on a creative level: writing, directing, producing, working with editors and music supervisors, and even making distribution deals with major studios, so I’m able to arm these writers with an arsenal of information so that they are prepared for whatever this business throws at them. And it can throw a lot at you.

The key to success in this business is knowledge. And I love sharing that knowledge with people who want to succeed. I’ve been very fortunate in this business, but the journey would’ve been infinitely more straightforward and faster if I’d had an experienced guide.

For better or for worse, I put my passion for writing before everything. I get far less than the recommended amount of sleep and far (far) more than the recommended amount of caffeine, all in the name of writing for a living.

I want to inspire other writers not to give up on their ambitions in the face of tough odds. It’s not easy to feel passionate about a project to the very core of your being, only to face persistent ambivalence and rejection from the industry gatekeepers.

That’s why I hope to guide writers to craft a version of their script that is true to their own unique vision while factoring in the practical, commercial considerations of the modern-day film business. There’s no reason why an individualistic passion project can’t also be a project that sells—and, ideally, I’d like to show up-and-coming scribes how they can accomplish both.

When I was growing up, my father exposed me to the classic works of the horror genre at a young age. While my buddies were all getting into Star Wars, I was more interested in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This skewed education definitely informs my taste in current TV and movies, as favorites of recent years have included The Babadook, Castle Rock, The Conjuring, and Hannibal.

That said, I’m also a dutiful student of cinema history, and I pride myself on being able to appreciate films of any genre or time period based on their self-contained merits. The defining elements of a great heightened sci-fi film are not the same as those of a coming-of-age dramedy, and vice versa.

As such, when I provide script coverage, my goal is to push the script at hand to become the best version of what it’s trying to be rather than molding it into some imagined version of what it ought to be. In closing, I humbly wish to see other writers who live and breathe for their work realize their ineffable dreams, and I will do my best to help make that a reality.

Bukowski once wrote a poem about walking a letter down to his mailbox. He also said (and I’m paraphrasing), “Stand up and live, then sit down and write.”

I maintain that is our superpower. Everything, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is a story. Whether it be for an independent film or a big budget sci-fi movie, our personal life experience is the ultimate cinematic umami. The character details, the emotional specificity, derived from our very lives and our experiences, ground every movie we pen with experiential-based reality. Our superpower is our individual lives and every character we put on the page is infused with our DNA.

I worked as a high school teacher in the Arctic, I was an assayist in a mine, a zinc skimmer in a smelter, ran a backpacker hotel in Athens, was a journalist, a camera operator and even a grave digger. I was fired from a job selling men’s wear – deservedly so. But during all of that time, I wrote at night, I wrote on the weekends, I carried a pen clipped to my shirt and a pad in my back pocket everywhere I went, and I’ve kept a meticulous journal for decades now. Simply because my parents once took me to see “One Million Years B.C.” Whatever Apollonian thunderbolt that struck me on that day in that little theatre has yet to subside.

When I was a kid, I didn’t want to make movies because, in those pre-internet days, I didn’t even know that was a possibility. I grew up a wide-eyed British Marvel comics reader on a blue-collar Northern housing estate. Any given Harryhausen movie on TV was my month’s highlight. I was obsessed with Doctor Who, Star Trek and the British Gerry Anderson shows.

When Star Wars came along, it rocked my world. Its attendant flood of behind-the-scenes literature made me realize people made this stuff for a living, and I started to devour everything I could about every facet of filmmaking. My parents had neither money nor connections, but, as a teen, I still had the best film school there was: old movies on the BBC.

I left home armed with stubbornness and determination. I began as a runner at a commercials company in London, segueing to becoming an assistant cameraman. In the evenings, with a manual typewriter, a photocopy of Kasdan’s Raiders Of The Lost Ark screenplay, and William Goldman’s Adventures In The Screen Trade for reference and inspiration, I started writing screenplays for myself.

After six years, on a “What If?” whim, I submitted my resulting pile of dead trees to some talent agencies. Within weeks, William Morris and ICM both offered to represent me. A year later, I sold my first screenplay overnight to 20th Century Fox. That was the last time I assisted as a cameraman.

I disdain the idea you ought to spreadsheet a movie into being solely by the numbers: creativity and common sense can triumph over stale script guru snake oil. You don’t have to be a USC alum to be a success in the movie business. If you’ve talent and determination, having someone who’s already fought in the Hollywood trenches to help whip your opus into shape is worth its weight in gold. So. Let’s get started, shall we…?