In 2003, I made the decision to move to California in order to pursue my interest in screenwriting and to serve as a missionary in the spiritual slums of Hollywood.
Here are answers to some common questions I've heard from friends and associates:
How long have you been interested in writing?
How did you decide that you had a "call" to be a screenwriter in Hollywood?
What did it mean for you to be a missionary in Hollywood?
So will you be writing "religious" movies?
What writing projects are you currently working on?
How long have you been interested in writing?
I've always enjoyed writing. I wrote my first poem at age six, and began writing short stories when I was eight. I have a bachelor of arts degree in English Literature. For my senior thesis, I wrote poetry under the supervision of poet David Craig. Then in 1993, I attended a graduate-level summer program in Shakespearean literature in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Since then, I have written a number of articles as a freelance writer for The Catholic Servant newspaper in Minneapolis.
In the fall of 2001, I decided to try my hand at screenwriting by attending a class at Metro State University in Minneapolis. I really enjoyed writing a number of screenplays for that course.
Shortly afterward, a friend returned from a conference in Florida on Christians and media. He brought me a brochure about the Act One: Writing for Hollywood program. I eagerly applied to the program, was accepted, and attended the month-long seminar in Chicago in June of 2002.
How did you decide that you had a "call" to be a screenwriter in Hollywood?
An article by Barbara Nicolosi was helpful for me as I discerned moving out to LA. Click here to view the article. As it turns out, my work has been more along the lines of service to other artists, primarily through a Theology of the Body study group and assisting with an RCIA program in Hollywood.
So what did it mean for you to be a missionary in Hollywood?
I tried to answer this question in the personal statement that accompanied my application to Act One. Barbara Nicolosi, director of the Act One program, said it well in a prayer she wrote a few years ago.
So will you be writing "religious" movies?
Hmm. Sounds like a loaded question. No one gives a more penetrating analysis of the relationship between the Church and the fiction writer than Flannery O'Connor. Click here to see what she has to say about this topic.
What writing projects are you currently working on?
My main screenplay project is a story about a young man and an aging nun navigating the tempest of American Catholic seminary life in the 1990s - it's part Dead Man Walking, part Ordinary People. Rather than going directly to script, I'm drafting it as a novel, then deciding if it merits going to screenplay. Other writing projects include a book about friendship as it relates to the spiritual life.
From 2004 until 2009, I rented an apartment with two alumni of the Act One: Writing for Hollywood program. We lived in Valley Village, about 15 minutes north of Hollywood.
My last full-time job was in the corporate headquarters for KB Home in Los Angeles, as a web content administrator. Prior to that, I worked as a production assistant for Family Theater Productions, especially with the annual Angelus Awards Student Film Festival.
Other activities included coordinating the RCIA Hollywood program held at Family Theater, singing in a Latin schola on Sunday mornings at an area parish, and managing my own blog.
revised November 2022
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