Who I am and what I’m up to

Hello! It is I, your humble imagination for hire. I’m thinking of getting that on a business card. Either “Imagination for Hire” or “Freelance Imagination.” Which of those sounds better, or are they both stupid? Both stupid is a totally acceptable response.

I am a person living in a small apartment with my preferred other person in a mid-large North American city. Sometimes I write stories, and some fewer times than that, people pay me for them. Sometimes I perform characters on stage. That I no longer do for free, which I wish wasn’t something I had to spell out. Being in a profession whose typical starting wage is Zero isn’t great, although it’s not, generally, the fault of the theaters themselves. They’re as strapped as any of us.

In particular, a few fun developments have happened recently! I’ve been hired on by two of the region’s major theatrical entities as a teaching artist. That is, I’ll be using my weird pretendy brain skills to instruct The Youths in various subjects, from literacy and basic storytelling to theatrical performance and Shakespeare text analysis. I look forward to seeing what The Youths come up with. …It just occurred to me that if I made a “Two Yoots” joke around even the oldest of the kids I’ll be teaching they’d probably look at me like I was wearing a live vulture as a hat. At least I’ll be in a position to educate them about my old references. Maybe I’ll get a cane specifically to shake at those moments. It’ll come in handy when trying to keep up with them inevitably turns my knees into castanets.

Anyway, as you’ll see in the Acting section of the site, I’ve also just been hired by the Washington Stage Guild, a sizable theatrical endeavor in these parts. I’m playing the role of Eilert Lovborg(Don’t worry, there’ll be so many romance-robot jokes) in Resolving Hedda, a new comedic take on the classic Hedda Gabler. More on that as work gets going. Finally, I do have some short fiction in the production pipeline, and when I know details about publication you’ll see ‘em here. If you haven’t seen the story I published a few months go, have a read! (It will take little of your time and none of your money, other than the equivalent money of your time as established in the T=$ equation)

Meanwhile I try and come up with new stuff to write, I audition, I fence, I walk dogs, I play Resident Evil 2 Remake, and generally get on with things.

Whatever things you’re getting on with, I wish you well. I would say something like ‘Whatever it is, you can do it,’ but that’s a dumb lying platitude that only embitters people toward feeling hope about anything. I can’t do everything I’d like to do, and neither can you. But I promise you can do something good, something worthwhile, something you’ll be happy with. If it’s not the thing you’re working at now, you can use what you learn from this thing to help make the next thing. And you’ll like how it looks. I guarantee it.

…Man, I can’t even make a Men’s Wearhouse commercial joke for these damn kids.