My Story

My love of creative writing began in 1998 when I enrolled in RMIT’s Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing. I was passionate about words and creative writing and was determined to ‘make it’ as an author. During my three years as a part-time student, my primary school reader titled Sea Jellies was published, and I co-founded a student-run publishing collaborative called RANT. The project was a great success, and RANT ultimately published two collections of student work, RANThology and RANTevision. While I was at RMIT, I took an elective unit in screenwriting. I loved it so much, I wanted to explore it further. So, after graduating from the Professional Writing and Editing course, I enrolled in RMIT’s Advanced Diploma of Professional Screenwriting.

In 2002, my experimental short film called The Spider and the Fly... A Fable was produced by a local independent production company. I was fortunate to be involved in some of the day-to-day production aspects from pre-production to post-production. The Spider and The Fly... A Fable went on to screen at Australian festivals including the St Kilda Film Festival. Around this time, I began work on two feature-length screenplays.

The first was a feel-good story called Ruby Tuesday, which went on to become a Top 50 finalist in the Australian version of Project Greenlight. I didn't win the grand prize (which was a production deal to make the film); however, in 2009, I was invited to workshop the script (under a new title) at Plume & Pellicule in Switzerland with filmmakers from Cuba, the USA, France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. A heartwarming story about a harried young woman in need of a miracle, baggage has been read by several influential actors and filmmakers and optioned several times (four at last count). Unfortunately, the project has never made it to the big screen.

The second project was a biopic about Jean Lee who was the last woman to be hanged in Australia. The unproduced screenplay was performed as a rehearsed reading at The Loft at Chapel off Chapel and at The Kelvin Club, a private members club in the heart of Melbourne's CBD. Jean Lee has been optioned twice, but like baggage, the project has never made it into production.​ Later in 2009, I was invited to be one of several writers on a micro-budget feature-length horror film called Don't Fall Asleep. After three drafts, the script was declared ready, and the film went into production in Los Angeles, California.

Don't Fall Asleep was distributed in the USA via DVD and digital download. Shortly after its release, I began work on a micro-budget feature-length project of my own. Working with a writing and producing partner, Killervision, a feature-length psychological thriller, went into production in Melbourne in early 2010. It was distributed on DVD and digital download in the USA and Canada by Maxim Media 2019 and was available at the Family Video chain of DVD rental stores as well as big box retail chain stores including WalMart. It is now available via the Kings of Horror YouTube channel.

In 2011, I began a collaborative partnership with Voyage Media, a film packaging company based in Los Angeles. Voyage optioned two of her feature film scripts, a tentpole action sci-fi and a psychological thriller. Producer Elizabeth Kushman (Scream 4, One Missed Call) was attached to both projects, which were ultimately pitched to the Senior Vice President of Production & Development at Constantin Film (Resident Evil series, The Mortal Instruments, Fantastic Four). I also began assessing manuscripts for adaptation into screen projects (film, TV, web) as well as writing treatments and feature-length book-to-script adaptations. The range of projects that I worked on was broad and ranged from children's animation to erotic gore.

In 2014, I decided to try something different and co-founded a boutique digital publishing business based in Melbourne. The business developed and published several children’s storybook apps that were available on all major platforms. Regrettably, one of the partners was unexpectedly forced to pull out of the enterprise while it was still in its infancy. Their contribution to the business was pivotal and attempts to find a new partner were unsuccessful. The remaining partners reassessed the business’s viability and ultimately decided to close up shop and move on.

In the wake of the business's closure, I returned to university where I studied for a Master of Arts degree. It was here that the concept for This is Not a Lie was developed. It's also where the concept for Stained Glass was developed. Stained Glass is a short visual novel where every decision the reader makes leads to one of four different outcomes. Shortly after completing my MA, I also completed a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. In 2018, I started teaching in the Professional Writing and Editing course at Box Hill Institute.

The years 2019 and 2020 were extraordinarily productive. In 2019, the UK based independent publisher Dixi Books published a collection of my short stories titled Open Wounds. In 2020, they published my contemporary novel This is Not a Lie, an ethnographic/autoethnographic story about a rock band in which the twenty-two-year-old main character is a heroin addict and a closet homosexual.

I have recently finished my latest novel, titled Deafening Silence, about a veteran of the War in Afghanistan whose world is collapsing around him as he deals with PTSD. I am tutoring Adaptations: Literature and Screen at Federation University.