United States of America
I am a staff writer for the online film journal Bright Wall/Dark Room, and my criticism has also been featured at sites such as Little White Lies and Memoir Mixtapes. My creative writing has been featured in journals such as New Limestone Review and Furious Gazelle.
I am also the writer/director of the 2018 independent feature film West of Her, hailed by critics as “enchanting” and “mesmerizingly beautiful.” My first full-length stage play, Why Are You Nowhere?, was the recipient of the Playwright’s Award for Staged Reading at the Midtown International Theatre Festival, and had its premiere production at Southeastern Louisiana University in 2017. In 2018, my play Hot Dog Christmas was commissioned by Boston's SpeakEasy Stage company for their new works initiative, and my short play Ode on a Donut Shop was published in the Stage It! 10-minute play anthology.
A graduate of the MFA program at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, I live in the Boston area with my wife, Caitlin, and our daughter, Nora.
For the 'Second Time Around' issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room, and subsequently republished at RogerEbert.com, I wrote about my complex relationship with Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love."
I'm not much of a memorabilia collector, but I do have one prized possession. It's a small black pin printed in the late 1970s, and it bears the famous image of Jack Nance as Henry in Eraserhead, framed by four words: ERASERHEAD - I SAW IT.
In my first piece for Bright Wall/Dark Room, I considered Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" through the lens of having become a father at the dawn of the Trump presidency.
For the 'David Lynch' issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room, I looked at the relationship between Lynch's work and the absurdist tradition.
Can we agree the summer of 2018 has been a rough one for America? As of this writing, the past few weeks have been dominated by horrors including, but in no way limited to, stories of the US government caging children, and dire speculation on the future of the Supreme Court.
For the 'Head Trips' issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room, I looked at a quartet of acid westerns, and their connection with the traditions of world religion.
Fifty years ago, two psychedelic comedic fantasias premiered. Both were headlined by superstar pop groups, and neither bore any creative credit to those central musicians. The opening credits of Yellow Submarine list the film as starring Sgt Peppers [sic] Lonely Hearts Club Band, a savvy elision of the fact that these animated Beatles were voiced by impersonators.
A look at the two adaptations of my favorite book—Kubrick's film, and the ABC miniseries—and the perils of adapting Stephen King.
Malcom Strickland's Dreams Fiction by Ethan Warren "I didn't like the way things seemed, but the way they seemed was the way they were, so that's everything" I +++ The man-played by the director himself-enters with a clear sense of purpose, and approaches something seated on a plain wooden chair.