PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
June 2001-Present: Screenwriter, creating scripts for feature films and television series.

August 2022-Present: Co-founder and Managing Director of Roots to Blossoms Entertainment, LLC, a content and events development company focused on projects representing the contributions of Black musicians, songwriters, and other creative artists to American culture.

January 2018-July 2023: Partner in TRIO TV, LLC, a content development company.

January 2018-March 2020: Partner in CODA Brand, LLC, a boutique marketing firm.

November 2008- December 2018: Partner in Flat Rock Motion Pictures, L.L.C., a film production company.

August 1994-April 2007: Feature writer for the Indianapolis Star, a daily newspaper. Responsibilities included reporting and writing general features, as well as establishing the newspaper’s visual arts beat and expanding it to include coverage of museum and gallery exhibitions, public art and architecture, the business of art, and profiles of local, national and international artists and architects.

December 1987-Present: Freelance copywriter, providing writing services for corporations, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, marketing and design firms, and advertising agencies. End products have ranged from annual reports and brochures to museum exhibition labels, educational materials, manuals, commissioned books, radio and television spots, print ads, and other materials.

May 1986-March 1988: Project editor/writer for a project commissioned by Lilly Endowment, Inc., an Indianapolis-based philanthropic foundation. Responsibilities included researching the histories and tracking the development of three youth programs funded by the Endowment, and working with another writer and an editorial committee to create in-house reports on the programs, as well as a book entitled Making the Connections on Behalf of Youth.

October 1993-March 1994/September 1981-June 1987: Writer-in-residence for schools throughout Indiana via the Artists-in-Education program, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Indiana Arts Commission.

September 1979-June 1981: Member of the programming panel of Artlink, a visual and performing arts center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The panel screened potential artists and performers, scheduled exhibitions and performances, and determined artistic policies.

March 1977-August 1980: Co-director/co-founder of Poetry 1, a literary organization in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which developed and sponsored readings and workshops by such renowned writers as Robert Bly, Allen Ginsberg, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gary Snyder, Etheridge Knight, and Carolyn Forche.

PUBLICATIONS
Online  A History of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis; The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis; 2013. This project involved a year and a half of research and writing, done for the museum which created a stand-alone Web site to accommodate the resulting collection of about 140 articles (most of which I wrote), as well as photos and videos. The site was live from 2013 until 2021 when it was taken down for updating and redesign. It is not currently available.

Books 

  • Legends: The Sports Figures on the Old National Bank Sports Legends Avenue of Champions; The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis; 2018.

  • Sport Through the Artist’s Eye: Selections from the National Art Museum of Sport; The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis; 2018.

  • Stacks: A History of the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library; Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Foundation; 2011.

  • Fanning the Flame: The Indianapolis Art Center Turns 75; Indianapolis Art Center, 2009.

  • Every Way Possible: 125 Years of the Indianapolis Museum of Art; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Indianapolis; 2008; one of two co-authors.

  • The Kids’ Books of Basketball, Citadel Press; New York, 2002.

  • The Herron Chronicle; Indiana University Press, Bloomington/Indianapolis, 2002; one of the three co-authors.

  • For the Sake of Art: A History of the Indianapolis Art Center; Indianapolis Art Center, 1999.

  • The Insiders’ Guide to Indianapolis (wrote 15 of 28 chapters), published jointly by Central Newspapers, Inc., Indianapolis, and The Insiders Guides, Manteo, North Carolina; first edition, September 1995; second edition May 1997.

  • Author and co-editor of a series of biographies on American poets for young adults: published in 1994 were volumes on Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, E.E. Cummings, and Williams Carlos Williams (all of which I wrote), and Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Walt Whitman (all of which I co-edited); Creative Education, Inc.; Mankato, MN.

  • Gordon Parks (a “Black Americans of Achievement” book); Chelsea House; New York, 1991. Selected as one of 1992’s outstanding books for teens by the New York Public Library.

Journalism  The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Travel & Leisure, Nation’s Business, USAir Magazine, Southwest Spirit, Sport, Saturday Review, Endless Vacation, Midwest Living, Amtrak Express, Barrister Magazine, Insurance Review, Homestyles, New Home, Ameritech Magazine, Allstate Life, Compass, USArt, Arts Indiana, Dialogue, Indiana Horizons, Indianapolis Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, Indianapolis Woman, The Indianapolis News, The Indianapolis Star.

SCREENPLAYS & TELEPLAYS 
Film and television projects (unproduced) have fared well at Showtime, Paramount, DreamWorks SKG, CBS, NBC, Fox, Scott Free Productions, History, and TNT.