using my autobiography
as a guide for others
Screenwriting, Non-Fiction, and Poetry
Writer
Acting renewed my love for writing. Did I mention that I have an MFA in poetry (and failed to get published or find work after graduating)? Now don’t get me wrong – as a recovering perfectionist, the writing process still feels like pulling teeth – but knowing that I can create work for myself to perform is nothing short of magical. I have auditioned for innumerable projects, and somewhere along the way I just stopped feeling inspired by the content that was out there. I thought to myself, “If this kind of work is getting made, there’s no reason I can’t make something myself.” And so began my love affair with screenwriting and the journey to making my first film, You Look Great.
Now, between auditions and projects, I am writing screenplays that I am passionate about bringing to life, nonfiction articles about my struggles with mental health, and, miraculously, poetry. These have all become important facets of my personality, each fulfilling a very different and very compelling need. And to think: if it weren’t for “failing” and putting away the pen and finding acting, I might not have come to enjoy some of my biggest accomplishments.
Sometimes things just come full circle.
Writing Samples
I have an ear for hyper-realistic dialogue and know how to translate recognizable, everyday situations onto the screen. I’m also comfortable sharing very personal anecdotes and experiences as a means of forming connection. Bonus points for a wide, romantic vocabulary and old emo boi sensibilities.
Screenwriting
You Look Great
Articles
You Look Great: Battling Bullying and Eating Disorders as a Man
An article for the National Eating Disorder Association about how bullying contributed to my eating disorder in childhood.
I Consider My Return To Therapy My Biggest Accomplishment in 2017
An article for Schizophrenic.NYC about how returning to therapy helped save my life.
Poetry
Predictive Text
I would love for you to come over
and see if we could get some rest.
A drink or two to start, then you
lead us to bed. Find your comfort, first,
in full, and I will find mine in yours.
Then we will sleep.
*
Morning will be the first language
we learn together, the grammar of sunrise,
the syntax of not enough sleep,
the definition of what wind really is:
perfect, simple, clean. See: promise.
*
We almost get it,
like we almost get each other.
Understanding is always
reassuring and disheartening,
a precipice and a plunge.
You never know as much
as you think, will never know
as much as you had hoped. But that gives you
something to strive for, to be surprised by.
We are now older versions of ourselves but when aren’t we?
We panic in such revelations and revert
into good little students, cracking open
the novels of our years gone by,
hunting for symbols and foreshadowing,
all the a-has that might have predicted today.
But the pages are thin and fading, and our marginalia
spouts only nonsense, and the school bell
is ringing. It’s time to go home.
Happy Birthday, Asshole
It’s your birthday, you’re at the bar,
and expectation is everywhere.
Everyone wants you to have fun,
but your idea of fun doesn’t jive
with theirs, not tonight, so they assume
you’re not having a good time,
even though everything is fine.
They don’t understand your silence
is more than a vehicle for sorrow,
and now they feel obligated
to cheer you up, a self-imposed
endeavor which will result in guilt
if they fail to succeed, meaning
they will stop at nothing.
They say, “Come on, dance already,”
but your feet refuse to rattle.
They say, “Come on, drink already,”
but your lips open for no one.
They’re running out of ideas.
They’re losing their patience.
Then they say, “Come here,
have you ever met So-And-So?”
and hurl you toward a woman
you’d never, ever, want to fuck.
Soon, she, too, grows tired of you.
You haven’t bought her a drink,
you haven’t asked her about her day,
and you could care less about her phone number.
Suddenly, she storms out of the bar, turns back
and huffs, “You ruined your birthday, you asshole!
Are you happy now?” and you want run after her
and ask, “What’s one day going to fix?”
but the night is hot and thick and you can’t move,
and ugly faces crowd around you.
You Look Great
You Look Great – my first short film as a writer, director, and filmmaker – has played at over a dozen film festivals nationally, earning several prestigious awards and nominations over the course of its two year run. Inspired by my personal experiences with eating disorders, You Look Great is an unflinching, intimate look into our addictions, obsessions, and self-consciousness. It offers a realistic insight into a strangely unrepresented story: that of a man fighting to hide his unhealthy relationship with his body.
You Look Great is out now: watch it on here, YouTube, and Vimeo.
