Where are you from and what inspired you to become a television writer?

I grew up in Los Angeles, California. As a child actress, I acquired roles on such television shows as Facts of Life, 227,and Designing Women. Although I found acting to be reasonably fulfilling, I possessed an immeasurable hunger to become a TV writer. While working on these various productions, I became mesmerized by the brilliant storytelling ability of each respective writing collective. To my young eyes, the capacity of these writers to conjure a wide range of emotions (e.g. humor, fear, anger, and courage, just to name a few) in order to entertain the viewing public in a thirty-page script was akin to the magic of David Copperfield. When I expressed my aspiration to become a TV writer to famed writer and producer, Norman Lear, he told me to just “write” – and write I did. At the tender age of thirteen, I wrote my first spec script for the television sitcom, Who’s the Boss.

What Spec did you write to get into the workshop?

I, along with my writing partner, Jonathan Kidd, wroteSouthland.

Who is your all time favorite television character and why?

This is a no brainer – Sue Ellen Ewing of Dallas. Sue Ellen Ewing was the most multi-dimensional female character on night time soaps who brilliantly demonstrated the complexity of humanity more generally and womanhood more specifically – through her struggles with addiction, insecurity, ambition, low-self esteem, and infidelity – all while trying to keep her family intact.