Portfolio
FICTION:
Tyranny of the Downbeat
A world-famous filmmaker exposes the waste and contamination of our groundwater by corporate farms in his native Central Valley, as well as the agrichemical companies who supply them and the lawyers, politicians, and lobbyists who protect them.
Counting on Christmas
Heartbroken when a precious holiday keepsake is stolen and her Christmas-themed business is threatened, a young woman who believes Christmas is the key to happiness learns life-changing lessons about love, family, community, and the true meaning of Christmas when she is visited by the ghosts of loved ones on Christmas Eve.
12 Days of Central Valley Christmas
My second children's Christmas book retells the traditional Christmas carol from a uniquely California point-of-view.
Nights on the Point
Two friends journey from Modesto, California to Key West, Florida. Along the way, they encounter a farting bear, a female bounty hunter, a blind Indian on a Harley, and a dead body with one of their business cards in its pocket.
Sarah's Game
A hardball TV sports journalist investigates blackmail against her father, a future baseball Hall of Famer. With the help of an idealistic sportscaster—a former teammate of her father's and her girlhood heartthrob—she sets out to clear her father's name. Revelation, resolution, retribution, and rekindled love happen along the way. As Yogi Berra would have put it: "Sarah's game ain't over 'til it's over."
SCREENPLAYS:
A Fire in the Mind
Logline: In 1932 in Monterey, California, aspiring short story writer Joseph Campbell falls in love with promising novelist John Steinbeck's wife and nearly destroys Steinbeck's writing career. This is a true story.
Tagline: They were friends before they became legends.
A Yosemite Christmas
Logline: A woman must learn to trust again when she must organize a traditional holiday event in Yosemite.
Tagline: Trust in love.
Apples and Oranges
Logline: Feisty male and female sportscasters re-ignite an old flame as they work together to unravel the mystery of a decade-old baseball betting scandal.
Tagline: NY's got balls ... but LA bats last.
Clearcut
Logline: A rogue environmentalist takes things into his own hands by taking on a South Korean multinational and their point man, who happens to be his oldest friend.
Tagline: Mother Nature bats last.
Lunatic Fringe
Logline: A good man with a good heart, tired of the way things are, joins the lunatic fringe of extremist politics in California's Central Valley.
Tagline: Every cop's a criminal, all the sinners saints.
Ticket 2 Ride
Logline: A lone wolf PI tries to stop a teenage loser from getting his fifteen the hard way.
Tagline: Each morning, you have to wake up a virgin.
The Christmas Gypsy
Logline: The eldest son of a large family risks destroying his family when he invites his estranged half-sister to celebrate Christmas with the family.
Tagline: A family is the closest of strangers.
Chateau Crush
Logline: After they're stranded at a remote Napa Valley winery, five wildly successful and young SoMa entrepreneurs must change their selfish ways and work together to solve the riddles that will allow them to escape the underground labyrinth they're trapped in and defeat the evil creature that is stalking and murdering them one-by-one.
The Mud Bowl
Logline: Every Thanksgiving, a group of Baby Boomers (who refuse to grow up) play a football game in the mud.
Tagline: They were old enough to know better.
Turn, Turn, Turn
Logline: A teacher becomes the reluctant hero of a populist movement to reverse the cynicism, greed, and anger that has infected the land.
Tagline: We all need something we can bleed for.
Bottom Dog
Logline: A retired FBI Agent, shot at Wounded Knee, helps the Agua Caliente Indians of Palm Springs uncover the cause of their holy man's sudden, and mysterious, death.
Tagline: We all need something we can bleed for.
My Father's Eyes
Logline: A high-powered district attorney chases his son through the streets of San Francisco in an attempt to stop him before he can find his mother – the woman who left them both years before.
Tagline: Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us.
Aladdin and the Ebony Palace
Logline: Aladdin battles to save the universe from Xanadu the Wizard.
Tagline: The journey is the reason why.
Blondes in White Cars
Logline: A writer returns to his hometown and meddles in the lives of his family and friends with lethal effect.
Tagline: You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.
After the Fact
Logline: A hypnotist-stripper performs at a bachelor's party of fraternity brothers to find out which one killed her father twenty years ago.
SITCOM PILOT:
Slice of Life
Logline: A smooth-swinging sitcom about a mixed bag of golf misfits trying to help a down-on-her-luck owner save her legendary but down-at-the-heels golf club.
Tagline: Never bet more than you can afford to lose.
STAGE PLAYS:
My Father's House
A Jonestown survivor returns home carrying a gun and a secret that will reveal what really happened in the Guyanese jungle on that dark November day in 1978.
Migrant Mother
On an overcast, drizzly morning in Nipomo, California, the lives of photographer Dorothea Lange and migrant Florence Owens Thompson collide, leading to the iconic photograph, Migrant Mother.
Early Morning Light
A world-class big wall mountain climber, angry that a colleague used bolts to climb a Yosemite route that hadn't been climbed, vows to retrace the route and remove every bolt, only to change his mind when he discovers that the route is far more difficult, beautiful, and elegant than even he could imagine.
$35 and a Dream
From their Dust Bowl beginnings to the Grand Ole Opry, the Maddox Brothers & Rose were a Central Valley family act that revolutionized American popular music, influencing Country, Rockabilly, and Rock 'n Roll.