I was born and raised dirt-poor in Nogales, Arizona (that’s a small town on the U.S./Mexican Berlin Wall in case you blink and miss it on your drive through).

At the tender age of 15, I applied for and earned a full, academic scholarship to attend The Lawrenceville School (a prep school for rich kids that’s been around forever).

After culture and climate shock, I attended Stanford University, spent a year wine-tasting, I mean studying in Paris, and graduated with a BA in English and French Literatures.

I swore never to return to the East Coast lest I hang myself, but I did return (but didn’t hang myself) and worked at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital psychosex ward as a research assistant whilst I put myself through Columbia University’s film school, where I earned my MFA with a concentration in screenwriting.

I then moved to Denver (God knows why, or maybe She doesn’t), but after a year and a half of prostituting myself to temp agencies, I learned that my-then-girlfriend of seven years had suddenly changed her mind about our being together forever.

So, I took all I had (my books and clothes) and stuffed it into a used Honda and drove my broken heart through the icy, treacherous, bittersweet Rockies to sunny, hazy L.A. I worked day jobs to pay for that highfalutin education mentioned above: from the depths of the typing pool to the dizzying heights of copy editing, from humbling communications management for the farm workers to schizophrenic, paranoid episodes teaching high school English.

I have paid my dues (to whom and what for I have no idea). But I'm very happy to report that I am now married to the love of my life (when she’s in a good mood and I get paid), have the most beautiful baby daughter (when she's not crying inconsolably), and know for certain that the only thing I need to do in life is write (or if not, I will drop dead).