2024 Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference

Texas has been my home for 95.5% of my life. I graduated from UT Austin many moons ago. I loathed my classes but enjoyed live music -- blues at Antone's (Guadalupe location) and Catfish Station and rock-a-billy at The Black Cat. I (barely) graduated and headed back to the Dallas area. For 27 years I've worked with a non-profit victim advocacy and mental health agency. I spent the first 13 years of my career as a victim advocate, which gave me a front row seat to human suffering. My job placed me alongside patrol officers and investigators, put me at odds with a few prosecutors, and cultivated my dark sense of humor. From death notifications to arranging crime scene clean up, the job provided plenty of writing material. For the last 15 years I've led (and grown) the agency as its executive director, which is a more stressful role that lacks excitement. My experiences inspired my first two novels (psychological thrillers), The Psychotic Son and VILE. I started dabbling with screenwriting a year ago, after attending WriterCon, where I spent most of my time at the bar talking to actor and screenwriter Bob Saenz, who became my mentor. I find screenwriting is a refreshing break from novel writing (although I continue to write them). So far I've written two features, a dark comedy and a horror.