My early comedy influences were Jerry Lewis and Lucille Ball. Now that I'm all grown up, I would say my influences are David Sedaris for great, honest comedy writing and authors like Alice Sebold for "Lovely Bones," Stephen King- love his memoir "On Writing" and Alice Hoffman for her sense of mystical, magical play and great sentence structure. Dean Koontz still gets me with his great intros. The guy knows how to craft a compelling first page!

I am also a screenwriter and have studied with some great teachers like Chris Devore (Elephant Man) and I also coach new screenwriters. I am usually commissioned to write romantic comedies, but I also enjoy the straight ahead comedy and recently optioned a script with co-writer, Dan Lougheed to National Lampoon.

I cherish my coaching time with clients- they really keep me on my game. There is one thing that I believe so strongly about writers that I try to infuse in all of my work and that is: our job is to report on the human condition; however flawed and gorgeous, that is what we are doing. It is an honor and a pleasure, and sometimes, the most maddening profession- to see the "in-between" of a person or a situation and feel absolutely compelled to write about it.

I wrote "Cubicide" after a harrowing ten-year stint as a sales professional. Though I was good at it, I hated it every day, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't following my bliss as a writer. So this book is a dark comedy about the rigors of following one's bliss and how we as artists keep ourselves down far more than any outside force can, albeit a heinous boss, a family obligation or just the unwillingness to accept and claim our own power.

It is my hope that Cubicide will cause an eruption of laughter that can be heard across the globe and with that, I pose one simple question: Are you following YOUR bliss?