Essays

I've had more than 60 essays published over the years. Here are some of the more recent. See the Archive for a sampling of essays published prior to 2000.

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Screen Dream considers what strange new trends in television programming reveal about our culture and evolution.

Ensemble: Possibilities contrasts ensemble stories with star vehicles, using lots of examples, from Mission: Impossible, to Star Trek (2009), and Avatar.

Casually Amazing is a short piece about my mom.

As If Hope Matters: A Critique of Modern Storytelling was published on the first anniversary of the Columbine shootings. The Denver Post retitled it "As we show, so shall we reap." It precipitated a lot of positive responses -- most from English teachers, which was gratifying. As predicted, stories have improved since its publication, but there's still a lot of room for improvement.

Everything Worth Having is a heartfelt tribute to Liz Caile and her posthumous book, A Life at Treeline.