Gangsters to Galaxies

I’m a storyteller who creates enthralling escapes. As a youngster, I was desperate for them. My childhood was a real-life version of The Sopranos but with girls growing up in an affluent English suburb. Days were brutal. Rather than a single imaginary friend, to survive I invented galaxies. Grit got me to America. I became a director, screenwriter, film story developer, and an instructor of writing and film making.

My Creative Biography

    "I would do anything. I would kill. I would maim. I didn’t mind hurting people. I was just not frightened. I didn't mind getting hurt, suppose it came naturally. But then I used to wake up at night in sweats to … to realize what I'd done to people." 

This is the voice of my father that I still hear in my head twelve years after his death. He spent a good part of his life in mob activities, from extortion to bank robberies and even murder. His ease with violence, coupled with a cruel, cool charisma, earned him a stellar reputation among London's underworld. He was on trial for murder twice at London's Old Bailey court, but each time, he got off. 

Dad lavished love and material gifts on his girls–my three sisters and me. We lived in a six-bedroom house, a palace of pets–ponies, dogs, cats, rabbits, even a polecat. We attended a fancy private school. All my parents' friends said the same thing to us, "you kids want for nothing." And in a way, that was true. My father was committed to being a good provider as the owner of an antique shop. He would run himself ragged to keep up with his girls’ demands. His efforts to stay clean and support our lifestyle created such rage in him that it often backfired on his family. 

The appearance of an affluent, 'normal life' was a thin gloss over a dark reality–a childhood that was one long cliffhanger. As a youngster, I was desperate for enthralling escapes. To survive, rather than creating a single imaginary friend, I invented galaxies. I buried myself in fantasy and futuristic space. This led me to become the storyteller I am today.

I started my career in special effects make-up in England on Tim Burton’s Batman. Then I came to the US a student where I studied literature, philosophy and film at Bard College, a beautiful liberal arts college on the bank on the Hudson river in New York. This led to story development employment in feature films. Working with directors such as Tim Burton, Roman Polanski, Sidney Lumet, and Sean Penn gave me the resume I needed to earn a full scholarship to Columbia University as a directing and screenwriting MFA major. 

My first films always melded the terrible elements of childhood with fanciful imaginings: a macabre irrelevance with a surreal grittiness. My multi-award winning film, “Swindles and Slim” was about my father’s inability to change: it was a mixture of Dorian Grey with old-then young- London gangsters in the mountains of Snowdonia in North Wales.
 
My first feature screenplay, “Bloodsugar,” developed by RKO studios, chronicles a fantasy version of my relationship with my father. Although the film's central relationships are based on my real experience, the tone and visual experience of the film is less gritty. My film-world hovers just above reality–a world where the fantastic bleeds into the real, where the real is peppered with the absurd, and the absurd tinged with danger. It is a world that is larger than life, not a presentation of life steeped in all its horrors.

As I matured my creative work has become less attached to my actual life, but still uses it to explore complex themes and characters. Overthrone blends sophisticated world-building, morally nuanced characters, social commentary, and science fiction elements with fantasy aesthetics. Even though I am far from the graduate student telling my life story, you will hear my father’s voice in the character Payman. You will see my voice in the imaginary world building, the wish for magic powers I dreamt of as a child in the protagonist Fia Pryani, and a familiar antique shop setting where she lives in exile. This novel mirrors my childhood reality: of a changing world where adults wage war as young people either become architects of change or suffer under oppression. 

My intent is to create fast paced, action filled, page turning stories that engross both young adults and adults alike. In that vein, I am also developing a science fiction thriller, The Green Thief. All these stories include characteristics that define me as a storyteller: escapism, high concept, deeply cinematic settings, complex characters with Aristotelian plot. I intend to use the novels as a base to write or edit the screenplays or pilots for streaming.