Biography
Born: Corvallis Oregon, December 18, 1962
Grade School: Worthington Hooker School. New Haven, Connecticut
Junior High School: Martin Luther King Junior High, Berkeley, California
High School: Berkeley High School, Berkeley, California
College: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. A.B. Cum Laude, 1984 Major: American History and Literature. Thesis: "Creating an American Mythos: Popular Culture and Popular Crime Novels of the 1940's."
Vice President Harvard Lampoon
Television Writing/Producing
"MAD TV" Supervising Producer Fox, QDE Entertainment 2002-06
"THE PJS" Episode Writer Fox/WB, Imagine Entertainment 2000
"THE WAYANS BROTHERS" Co-Executive Producer WB Network, Warner Brothers 1995-99
"THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR" Co-Executive Producer NBC, NBC Productions 1993-95
"ROC" Co-Producer Fox, HBO Independent Productions 1992-93
"THE CIVIL WAR: THE LOST EPISODE" Executive Producer PBS, Calloo Callay Inc. 1991
"RUGRATS" Episode Writer Nickelodeon, Klasky-Csupo 1991
"GOING PLACES" Executive Story Consultant ABC, Lorimar Television 1990-91
"NEW ATTITUDE" Co-Creator/Executive Story Consultant ABC, Castle Rock Productions 1989-90
"THE ROBERT GUILLAUME SHOW" Executive Story Editor ABC, New World Productions 1988-89
"WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW" Episode Writer Syndication, Columbia Pictures Television 1987-88
"AMEN" Story Editor NBC, Carson Productions 1986-87
"THE REDD FOXX SHOW" Story Editor ABC, Lorimar Television 1985-86
"CHARLIE AND COMPANY" Staff Writer CBS, 20th Century Fox TV 1985
Other Writing
Stage Plays: "GILLIGAN'S ISLAND AS SEEN ON TV." (1982) Producer, "The Paranormal Review." (1983)
Screenplays: "THE BRIDESMAIDS" (1998), "JOHNNIE AND THE GENERAL" (1996), "LINCOLN II" (1995), "BUFFALO SOLDIER" (Silver Pictures/Warner Brothers, 1991), "COME FLY WITH ME" (1988), "MY WIFE MADELEINE" (1987), "THE COMPANY WE KEEP" (1985), "FIZZ: A FABLE" (1985)
Novels: "THE GOLDEN HOUR" Amulet Books, Harry N. Abrams, publisher (2004), HOUR OF THE COBRA, Amulet Books, Harry N. Abrams, publisher (2006), HOUR OF THE OUTLAW, Amulet Books, Harry N. Abrams, publisher (2007)
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
I. YOUTH
Let me start at the beginning. I was born in Corvallis Oregon, but my formative years were spent in New Haven Connecticut. My mother was a speech pathologist who decided to change careers when she went to law school. My father worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a forest entomologist. I was fortunate to be raised in an environment of intellectual curiosity, and a house filled with a variety of books and magazines. I also had a mother who read to us. She read to us all the time when we were young, but even when I was in fourth grade I remember her reading The Once and Future King, and the Collodi version of Pinocchio. So I grew up with a love for books and words and writing. Creativity and independent thinking were held in very high regard in my family.
I have a sister, Robin, who is a year and a half older than me, and a brother, Blake, who is five and a half years younger than me. As early as I can remember, we played incredibly imaginative games. Everything was about make-believe. We built complicated cities and scenarios for a collection of little mouse figures, we wrote radio plays and newspapers that reported on the goings on of the family, we constructed mysteries, laying out a clues in a room and challenging the other person to solve it. And we wrote books.
My initial books - I know this because I still have them - are very big on character and thin on plot. A typical book would be about a family. The family usually had ten children, and many pets. I'd draw a fantastic cover, make a list of characters, assign them wildly creative names, maybe draw a picture of each person...and that was it. I think I've come a long way since then.
The library was my candy store. My sister and I would ride up on a Saturday afternoon on our bikes, which were outfitted with side baskets to carry back books. When we got there we would spend hours picking out what we wanted. We were very greedy. We would take whatever the limit was, stuff our baskets, ride home and gorge ourselves. After we finished our pile of books we'd switch, and read each other's pile. We'd keep gobbling them up till our eyes hurt. They never lasted the full week.
II. TEEN YEARS
When I was starting 6th grade we moved to Berkeley California. I continued to read but I also became a voracious film buff. I was lucky enough to not be encumbered by a social life so I watched hours of movies with the same greediness and fanaticism that I read books. I enjoyed a wide variety of genres, including films by Alfred Hitchcock, film noir, westerns, romantic comedies, broad comedies, horror and science fiction. I also enjoyed learning and was fortunate to have some very good teachers at Berkeley High
School. They fed my hunger for knowledge, and it is there that I became increasingly interested in History. To me history explains the social world around us; how we got to where we are. It shows how great movements are the culmination of many small events, how one person really can make a difference and how even the mightiest civilizations change and fall. Pretty heavy stuff! Science is my other favorite subject, for it describes our physical world and how it works.
III. COLLEGE
I went to Harvard College expecting to become a doctor. I took several pre-medical courses but found that I was much more interested in the amazing array of courses now available to me - courses in philosophy, astronomy, folklore, film, and history. Best of all, I had access to Widener Library, which is the third largest library in the country after the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. I spent hours and hours in this library. One of my favorite things to do, if I needed a break from studying, was to go on a quest to liberate the "least read book." The idea was that for a book to realize its purpose it has to be read. There are ideas trapped inside waiting to be transferred to somebody else. I would go burrowing through the stacks looking for the oldest book I could find, then blow off the dust, open it and read a chapter. If this sounds like an odd way to spend one's time, I don't think I need to remind you again that I had no social life. Except that actually around this time I did start to develop one.
I became an editor of the Harvard Lampoon, which is the semi-famous humor magazine at Harvard, my freshman year and immediately found my niche. The humor there was quirky and irreverent and it colored my entire college experience. I spent just as much time hanging out with my fellow Lampoon editors, coming up with jokes and pranks and writing funny essays, as I did studying. That may or may not be a good thing ( actually, I didn't do too badly, graduating with honors in American History and Literature) but it did make me start to question my career choice. So I stopped being pre-med and started being "undecided." I graduated not really knowing what I wanted to do.
IV. HOLLYWOOD
I moved to Hollywood because my sister, who wanted to be an actress, needed a roommate. I was going to give myself two years to decide what kind of graduate school I would attend. In the meantime a college friend helped me find a job as the assistant to the Director of Comedy Development at Columbia Pictures Television. I was more or less his secretary, but part of my job was to read television scripts to help discover new talent. As I read I realized that I could do as good or better. I wrote a "spec" (speculative) script which eventually got me an agent and led to my first writing job on a show starring 1970's comedian Flip Wilson called "Charlie and Company."
It didn't last very long, but one of the great things about show business is that there is no shame in losing a job or being fired...in fact, it often leads to more offers with higher pay. Sure enough I quickly got another staff job on a different show and I was on my way.
I've worked on many sitcoms and a few cartoons. Some of the more well known ones are Amen, Roc, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Wayans Brothers, Rugrats, and MAD-TV. I've learned things from each job, I've met my share of celebrities and I have to admit, it's got to be one of the best jobs of all time. I literally get to go into work, laugh all day and get paid for it. And yet TV is a collaborative medium. When you write a television script the story is usually crafted by several people pitching out an outline. Then after you write it, the teleplay goes through a re-write process where up to fourteen people may be pitching jokes and story elements that get added in. After that the actors and director get to request changes, and may interpret the piece in a way that was unintended. The final product reflects many people's ideas. Sometimes it is a realization of the original writer's vision, but often it is not.
For a writer that can be very frustrating. After working under those conditions for twenty years I finally decided that I wanted to do something that was my own, and so I started noodling with the idea of writing a novel. I had a kernel of an idea, some characters, a few striking images and a theme. What did I do with them? I planted them in a fertile imagination. After much tending, nurturing and pruning, mulching, watering, and picking off snails, they eventually blossomed into my first book, THE GOLDEN HOUR.
V. TODAY
So now I am also a novelist. I live near the ocean with my husband (whom I met on the Harvard Lampoon and who is also a writer), my three children, my Labrador Retriever, a rescued Schnauzer-Yorkie, a variety of fish and a couple of noisy guinea pigs. When I'm not writing or goofing around with my family (which is 90% of my time), I enjoy being outdoors; horse riding, hiking, gardening, going to the beach. I still love seeing movies and reading. I love going to museums of all kinds. I love architecture and seeing famous buildings and homes designed by famous architects and I also like walking through beautifully landscaped gardens. I collect first edition books and animation art with my husband. I love to travel and see how other people live. I play the piano and I'm trying to teach myself guitar, though that's coming along pretty slowly. I still love to write and expect I'll be doing so until the day I die.