a 501(c)3 non-profit org.
The Stephen King Thing and You
Stephen King is my favorite author. I believe I've read everything he's published, though every so often something pops up that I didn't know about and delights me. I've also had the pleasure of adapting two of his works into short films and meeting him in person to share these works. You can click the video below to see when my wife and I met him at Simon & Schuster in NYC in 2003 after winning Simon & Schuster's American Gunslinger contest. The award-winning short film, Roland meets Brown, is further down the page.
Please read the blogs for my full history with Stephen King.
I've long felt there's more to King's work than what gets the headlines - particularly the blood, guts and monsters. While they are no doubt real in his realm and a significant part of what he does, so is hope, faith, love and the scariest monsters of all: humans. I invite you to explore these with me in classes using the three King-based films below. Each of these films is offered as its own 16-week online course. We meet online once a week to look at the selected film through the lens of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Your will discover what lies beneath the surface for you with this film - in other words, why is it your favorite? Why do you keep coming back to it? What do you have to reflect back to the film that keeps reflecting back to you?
Participants will write one page per week and share with fellow classmates in a password-protected Google Drive. The most important writing you'll do will be the feedback you offer your classmates. As King says, there are two ways to become a better writer: read and write. We'll do both here. And whatever you create can change your life.
Cinema Therapy Writing Courses
Open to everyone. Get busy writing or get busy dying.
Stand by Me
The Shawshank Redemption
The Green Mile
If you're a fan of the Dark Tower series, this little-known film is a must-see. It was the Grand Prize winner in Simon and Schuster's American Gunslinger contest in 2003. The contest was in honor of the fifth book, Wolves of Calla, marking King's triumphant post-accident return to Roland's world. Participants in this contest were given the option of several excerpts from the first four books in the series. Only one person was allowed to appear on screen, as per the contest rules. Long days and pleasant nights...
KingCon 2024
The first ever KingCon was held in Las Vegas at the Linq Hotel in late October 2024. It featured rare books, incredible talent across the King stratosphere, Dollar Babies and feature films all derived from the works of King. For the latest information on KingCon 2026 and more, please join the KingCon Facebook page.
Origin and Connection to Parkinson's disease
Yes, And...eXercise is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to improving quality of life within the Parkinson's community. My father, Dan, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD) in 2001. We've been on the journey to figure out how to live our best since then. You can see more about our story, including a two month, 20,000 mile road trip to see al 30 Major League Baseball parks at the Boys of Summer website.
While researching the effects of improvisation and storytelling on PD during my doctoral studies in the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences program at UNLV, the theme of people with PD feeling imprisoned by the disease emerged. This led me to try framing our storytelling program with the Shawshank Redemption - calling it the Parkinson's Prison and the Hero's Journey to Escape! We've run this 16-week program several times and some of the students' writing that has come from it can be seen here.