| 26 September 2011
"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them." - Edward R. Murrow
What: The border patrol has its hands full with illegal immigration, going up against not only a well organized network of coyotes but also the vigilante Minutemen who interfere with their work. Further, there’s an upcoming gubernatorial race in Texas and the leading candidate is vehemently xenophobic.
Who: Preston Clark is the leading gubernatorial candidate with his eyes on an even larger prize. Popular with his party and the state’s business interests, he is considerably less so with his family: bored wife Sylvia and defiant teenage daughter Bethany. Sylvia is awakened from her boredom when she discovers that the household maid, Mariella, had been horribly abused in El Salvador and escaped to this country illegally – something that would be a complication for the candidate if Sylvia were to reveal this information; she won’t.
In forced attendance at a political fundraiser, Sylvia and Bethany listen as
Preston, at the podium, looks out at $10,000 dollar a plate diners. The Crowd adores him. Too bad his family doesn’t.
Preston: Our borders are ignored, our laws broken. Illegal immigrants cross into Texas at a rate of hundreds a week. They take American jobs, they pay no taxes, there is no screening process -- honest men enter along with felons. We have lost control. If elected Governor, I vow, I will end this invasion!
The crowd bursts into applause. Preston pauses triumphantly, then continues like a preacher in the pulpit.
Preston: I will crack down on illegals already here...
Seated to his right, Sylvia has a smile plastered across her face to mask her foul mood. She’s used to faking it, in and out of bed.
Preston: I will destroy the flourishing underground which helps these people violate our laws...
Beside her, Bethany, grim faced, scans the room. She spots the exit. Bethany leans over to her mother.
Bethany: (whispering) I have to pee.
Bethany slips out. Preston sees her go, but without missing a beat, continues his speech.
Preston: Stopping illegal immigration into this great state of Texas will be my number one priority!
Booming applause. Off on Preston as he savors the adulation.
In a small Mexican village, Fernando Lopez, 23, is initiating his young brother Luis, 16, into the export business – the delivery of paying chattel to their American “buyers” on the other side of the border. Things haven’t started well as their American compadre and driver, Raymond the moronic surfer dude is late in arriving. With a full load, Raymond initiates a “drain” break at the halfway point. Raymond’s idea of a break doesn’t just involve urinary relief, but also includes a sampling of the goods in the enclosed trailer.
Raymond grabs the girl he accosted earlier and pulls her from the trailer. Forcing her to her knees, he unzips. As Fernando and Luis approach from behind,
Fernando: What the fuck you doing?
Raymond: You want seconds?
Luis: Stop him!
Fernando: He’s right. Don’t mess with the cargo. We gotta get going!
Raymond: When she’s done sucking my dick.
Fernando slaps Raymond in the face.
Fernando: I’ll cut your dick off, you don’t get back in the truck right now.
Fernando starts back towards the cab. Raymond flips him around, sucker punches him.
Raymond: It’s my truck, my call, asshole. I’m tired of taking orders from you.
They struggle on the ground, Luis and the woman watching.
Fernando: Stupid fuck, you couldn’t put a run together without me! Three years, you still can’t even speak Spanish.
Raymond pins Fernando to the ground, picks up a large rock, menacing it over his head.
Raymond: How’s this for some fucking Spanish, “Adios.”
Raymond is about to bring the rock down on Fernando’s head when a gunshot blast echoes across the empty desert.
Close on Raymond
He looks down, sees a bloody stain spreading rapidly across his shirt.
Raymond: Jesus, fuck...
Raymond falls forward onto Fernando. Fernando crawls out from under him and goes to Luis, who clutches the shotgun, trembling.
Luis: He was gonna...
Fernando: (re: the gun) Gimme that. (to the girl) Get back in the trailer.
Things are heating up at the Border Patrol, Elena Miranda, FBI, has been assigned to the unit because intel indicates that there maybe a terrorist crossing into Texas from Mexico... there is.
No Meaner Place: With the rise of Rick Perry, Tea Party governor of Texas and potential presidential candidate, “The Border” couldn’t be more prescient. Jefferson has painted complicated situations and characters with depth. Whether it is the ambitious Clark, the coyotes Fernando and Luis, Clark’s rival Manuel Jimenez, or Clark’s bored Sylvia wife awakened by the plight of her maid, no one is all good or evil – the actions of each individual are understandable within the context of his or her situation. We just find different rooting interests (or not, depending on the character). Immigration and border politics are hot button issues and Jefferson doesn’t shy away from portraying them, fairly or unfairly. It was particularly interesting that the tertiary group consisting of the Border Patrol Agents and Elena Miranda were positioned in the pilot as support, but clearly would be of primary importance in upcoming episodes as it was more important to establish the groups whose work would influence the actions and reactions of the Border Patrol unit. Wearing her sympathies fairly openly, Jefferson has written what would have become a good old fashioned thriller with a social conscience.
Life Lessons for Writers: Sometimes there’s sympathy even in the unsympathetic.
A Conversation with the Writer:
Neely: Well, let’s start at the beginning. Congratulations! This script was one of the WGA Access Award Winners for 2011.
Dawn: Thank you. It was a really great opportunity. I enjoyed the program. We got to meet some showrunners; we got to meet people in different development departments; and it was interesting for me to see just the number of wonderful writers who are out there and still hustling – people who have had shows, people who are trying to get shows on the air.
Neely: Well, to a certain extent, that’s you too, isn’t it?
Dawn: Absolutely. But you always feel so isolated. You know what I mean? You feel like you’re the only person out there doing that. And of course there are so many wonderful people who are out there.
Neely: One of the things I didn’t realize was that I thought that they judged your script and gave you the award and that was it. Are these meetings one of the perks of winning?
Dawn: Yes. You get to go to these mixers. They have showrunners come in for you to meet and talk to and pitch your story.
They had the showrunner from the “Walking Dead”…
Neely: …Glen Mazzara?
Dawn: Yes. They had him come in and talk to us about how you pitch your personal story. It was really enlightening. As much as I pitch my story, and as much as I feel comfortable pitching it, he gave me a whole new way to look at it. It was really great. Also, he was honest about his own experience in the industry, which was especially helpful.
Neely: Let’s talk a little bit more about your script. What made you choose this story?
Dawn; This is a story that’s been sitting with me for years. I’m a news hound, so I’m constantly reading newspapers. My actual first job when I got out of college was an internship at the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and they made us read 4 newspapers in the morning before we could start work – cover to cover. So I was always looking for stories and one day I read a story about a white woman who was sent to jail for her involvement with the Sanctuary Movement. Her family had no idea that she had gotten involved in this modern Underground Railroad. And that stuck with me. I wanted to find some way to tell that story. Bits and pieces began to inform it along the way.
Like these people on our street who I see every day collecting cans. It turns out that their kid is going to Cal State Northridge and they’re recycling the cans to help him through school. Then I read another story in the paper about the shipping crate left in the desert full of people being smuggled over the border and they all died because it was too hot.
All of those things started to swirl around in my mind and I realized the best way for me to tell this story is to tell it as a family drama set in the world of illegal immigration because there are so many different families affected by it.
Neely: You have at least three different pod stories going. How did you envision intersecting them?
Dawn: I lay the ground work for them to intersect, but in the end, when I’m writing it, I go with how I’m feeling, where the characters take me. For example, Elena had previously been assigned to working with the governor and it’s hinted she had an affair with him, but she was pulled off that detail to go down to the border because of her Mexican American heritage. So there’s her connection with the governor, with the political side of the story which can bring her back into that world.
Sylvia’s housekeeper tells here that she was able to cross the border because she had been given some money to go to the market by the men who had been torturing her, but it wasn’t enough money for her to pay for her escape. So she pleaded with this coyote who took her over anyway even though she didn’t have enough money. The coyote turns out to be Fernando, who people describe as someone who follows his heart more than he follows his head and that’s what ultimately gets him into trouble. So there is the connection between him and the maid which brings those worlds together.
Then there’s the young Border Patrol officer whose father is the Militia leader – another way to intertwine the characters. I tried to set up a number of different ways that the stories come together.
Neely: Although I have my own theories, which grouping was going to take precedence?
Dawn: I think I need to have the Border Patrol be the primary group. You need that procedural element that will keep the audiences watching and the network happy. That storyline actually is going to move into a place of prominence. But in the pilot I found myself in the position of wanting to lay out all the players and these stories so you’d know the complete world; so you’d know who all these people and all the different families who were going to be affected by this drama.
Neely: That’s the grouping I would have chosen too.
Dawn: It makes the most sense.
Neely: Can you tell us a bit about where some of these characters were going, starting with Preston and Sylvia Clark.
Dawn: Preston is going for the governorship, ultimately the White House. He starts to become a politician who… it’s so interesting because you sort of see it now with the Republicans… they have their eye on the prize and yet they’re getting caught up in all the petty politics, all this personal stuff. I see him sort of taking that route in the way he goes up against Manuel Jimenez, the businessman who he has a personal grudge against. Preston sabotages himself through his own ego and arrogance.
I see Sylvia being reinvigorated, reintroduced to life through the Sanctuary Movement; going back to what she started to do with her life, to become a doctor, helping people. That starts to excite her and change her perspective on the world. Then she’s looking at her life with this husband and this daughter and really going, “Oh my god! Look at the life I’ve created. This is not who I want to be and where I want to be.” So we see her going through those changes.
Neely: One of your hooks at the beginning was with African American Border Patrol Agent Forrest Mitchell who was counting the days until retirement. You subtly laid out the kind of racism he faced on a daily basis with the “natives” (i.e., the Militia) and his conflict in arresting illegals. What was going to happen to him?
Dawn: I don’t think I had a set plan for him. He says he’s done, he’s burnt out, he’s not doing this anymore; but he finds that he really does still have a feeling for this work and it’s something that is important to him. So I don’t think it will be as easy for him to walk away from it as he says.
The whole thing about the racism beyond just the racism against the illegals was an interesting thing for me to play with. I enjoyed looking at how an African American man in that position, in that particular place would be treated, would react, and what his defenses would be. I think you would probably see some more of Forrest dealing with that racism in a more direct way. Honestly, I’m not sure where his story would end up. To me, that’s some of the fun of writing, taking that journey along with the characters.
Neely: Which of the characters did you most identify with?
Dawn: That’s a great question. Oddly, I think there’s a little bit of me in all of them. But the one I probably identified the most with was Luis. He’s coming into this new world and not quite sure it’s something he wants to do and not quite sure he can do it. He tries to do the right thing when people around him are not and keeps getting pushed back for it.
Neely: I’m hoping you weren’t going to go all Romeo and Juliet on us with Clark’s daughter and Jimenez’s son.
Dawn: I laugh when you put it as “going Romeo and Juliet.” That is initially where they’re going to go, but it’s going to take a turn toward King Lear. I really want Bethany to be one of those people who you see in a situation where she has to make a really tough choice and realizes that she’s not strong enough. She’s just not the person she wishes she were. She’s going to recognize that she can’t be involved with JJ because she really can’t go against her father.
She can’t be involved with the movement; she’s not that good a person. She likes her GAP card, she likes her lifestyle; she likes all of the privilege and power she gets from being the daughter of the governor, as much as she fights against it. And I want her to have that realization and then be the good daughter, siding with her father to preserve what she has, what they have.
Neely: So which daughter in Lear is she going to be?
Dawn: More than likely, she’s going to end up being the one who at the end tries to help him. She’ll have shades of Cordelia.
Neely: I have to say, I’m an absolute movie and TV geek. I would bet you’re not aware of a film from 1949 called “Border Incident” starring Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy as Mexican and American border agents trying to break up a vicious gang of coyotes bringing illegals into the U.S. to work the fields for an evil ranch conglomerate. The bad guys left no one living. It’s classic noir but with a social conscience.
The whole social conscience thing is rather ironic as regards George Murphy who, thankfully briefly, was the Republican Senator from California in the 60s, laying the groundwork for Reagan. Now he’s mostly known as a throwaway line in a Tom Lehrer song (“now we have a Senator who can really sing and dance”).
Dawn: I wasn’t aware of it and I really would like to see it. I’m an old movie fan as well and since I wrote this, I’ve been looking to see what border stories are out there. Interestingly enough, as pertinent as it is to what’s going on, not even just now but over the past 5, 10 years, people have shied away from this kind of story for the most part.
Neely: That’s an interesting comment. Do you feel there was a more specific reaction or do you think the subject matter just makes people uncomfortable and it was unspoken?
Who has it gone out to?
Dawn: It hasn’t gone out to a lot of places. To the few places it has gone out to as a potential project the response was, “Oh, there are thousands of ‘Border’ scripts out there. They’re all the same. No one wants to do this story. No one’s going to make a “Border” script; this will never get made.” I’ve heard that fairly consistently.
And my response is always, “Yes I understand there are a lot of Border scripts out there, but to me this is really a family drama and it just happens to be set in that world.” It’s frustrating; it’s very hard to get people to read it as a potential series. Mostly I’ve used it as a writing sample.
Neely: How has it worked as a writing sample?
Dawn: It’s worked well. It’s gotten me meetings. I think what people respond to is the gray area; there are lots of gray areas in this. Nobody is just the good guy; nobody’s just the bad guy. This subject matter allows me to do that in a particularly strong way. Even though there are a lot of things going on in this piece, there’s depth to the characters that I think surprises people.
Neely: Did you ever think about ideal casting?
Dawn: That’s a fun question. I tend not to cast as I write. I like to be surprised. Fortunately I have been in the position to write something and then go ahead and see it be cast and then shot. I really like to leave my mind open because sometimes these wonderful actors come in and I hadn’t even envisioned it the way they were doing it. So I allow the actor to take me on a journey in my own script and show me that they were what I was thinking of. I think that’s part of the fun.
If there’s one person who I did think of, it was the Border Patrol agent and it was Morgan Freeman, obviously someone who wouldn’t do TV. But in my mind that’s who I envisioned (laughing). If I do think of anyone, I generally think of actors who would probably never do a TV series – like a Morgan Freeman or a Sigourney Weaver.
Neely: (laughing) Well I think you should always aim as high as you possibly can.
Dawn: This is true.
Neely: No matter what, it’s a great writing sample. Are there still staffing opportunities coming up?
Dawn: There are a couple of things going on that are mid-season that may be possibilities.
I’m pitching a spec pilot script. I have another project, a legal drama idea that I’m developing with Charlie Ebersol at The Company.
Neely: I’ve noticed that you haven’t staffed in a while, but you’ve also made mention of some important family duties like your daughter’s, did you say… opera rehearsals?
Dawn: (laughing) I haven’t staffed in a few years because I have been doing script assignments, freelance scripts, non-fiction writing and keeping up with my children. I wrote a book called Three Ring Circus about how couples manage marriage work and family. I was an exclusive contributor to Fit Pregnancy magazine. I wrote for Working Mother magazine and was copy editor on a book about the history of Black Los Angeles that came out in 2010 from NYU Press. All that, as well as developing my own scripted projects.
I had a deal at NBC Universal for a pilot idea, a comedy/mystery which was based on my grandmothers. They were both housekeepers and were two of the smartest women I ever knew, but they were constantly underestimated by people.
And family has also been a little crazy. Both of my daughters are actresses. Juggling what they’re working on and what I’m working on is always a challenge. I have one right now who’s in a professional production of “Annie” with Sally Struthers. So those are the rehearsals I’ve been running to. (laughing) Definitely not opera.
But I would like to staff again now that my kids are older. I think TV is at such an interesting and exciting junction. So many great stories being told and so many new venues in which to tell them.
Neely: Tell me a bit about your background. How did you get started in this insane business?
Dawn: I mentioned that I started working for MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (now known as the PBS NewsHour), but then decided I really didn’t want to be in news. So I moved out to LA and started working for NPR. I wrote radio dramas. The only mandate was that they be family-friendly and historically accurate. It was for a program called the Wells Fargo Western Heritage Radio Theater.
Soon, every time I had a radio show go on the air I’d get a call from a studio saying “Oh we were thinking of doing that as a feature. Do you have a script?” At the time, I hadn’t ever even seen a feature script, so I got a bunch of them and started reading and writing them. I ended up getting into the Disney Writer’s Program.
While I was there, someone heard one of my radio shows and asked me to come in and pitch an animated family-friendly movie about Martin Luther King Jr. They needed it to be family-friendly and historically accurate which is something of a challenge when you’re dealing with things like an assassination. They had heard all sorts of weird pitches like “King Meets Aliens” and “King Joins a Gang.”I went in and pitched something very simple and it ended up being my first produced project.
It starred Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, James Earl Jones, John Travolta and Susan Sarandon. And I was nominated for an Emmy for it, so it was an interesting and exciting way to start. Off of that I ended up on “Judging Amy” and worked there for a couple of years. I started doing more non-fiction work when I had my children and then worked for Tommy Lynch on a show called “South of Nowhere.” Then I started writing features and one of those assignments was particularly fun.
My husband’s a rocket scientist (really); he’s not in this business at all. He works for NASA and is a deep space navigator. We’re kind of a geeky science family. So there was this book that I had always wanted to adapt called Sex and Rockets. I was afraid that everyone in town would want it when it first came out and there was no way I was going to be able to get it. I think I tried to see if I could track down who had the rights, but it didn’t work out.
And then, months later, I was going to yoga and I ran into this woman in front of the class, which had been cancelled. We started talking and we said let’s go have some coffee. It turned out that her company was interested in the story. She had me come in and pitch, and I ended up writing that project! It was really fun for me because it was a true story about a modern day mad scientist, a guy with a limited education in the 1930s who developed the technology that’s used today to send rockets into space.
So that’s how I got into the business. I got in via the News route and just continued writing. I’ve always written. The first thing I wrote was a book called Joe the Marble when I was 9 years old. It was a picture book and I conned a Yale art student into illustrating it for me. Then I sent it out to a zillion publishers with my little 9 year old typewritten cover letter. And I got a zillion rejections; but they were all very nice and encouraging. And I haven’t stopped writing since.
Neely: Just a random thought, but have you ever looked again at that book that you wrote when you were 9 years old to see what you could do to it to get it published?
Dawn: (laughing) Years ago, I thought about it. I still have the story on my shelf somewhere and I still have the drawings that the art student did (and she might be a famous artist by know; I don’t even know). But no, not recently. I remember the rejection slips, though. I remember what they said. They said that nobody wanted to read a story about an inanimate object that had a life of its own.
Neely: (laughing) I believed they’ve changed on that now.
Dawn: (laughing) Exactly. Exactly.
Neely: Where did you grow up and where did you go to college?
Dawn: I grew up in North Haven, Connecticut, just outside of New Haven. I’m a faculty brat. My father was at Yale – Associate Dean of the Medical School. He’s a child psychiatrist, which explains a lot. You know the joke - dentists’ kids have bad teeth and shrinks’ kids are crazy. My mother was a pediatric nurse, at the University as well.
I went to Northwestern in Chicago and studied theater. I was tricked into going. I went on the one warm day of the year (Neely laughs loudly) and spent the next four years in 80 below wind chill factor.
Neely: I grew up in Chicago so I understand; but on the other hand the East Coast isn’t a whole lot better.
Dawn: No. But it’s a different kind of cold. But what a fabulous city. Chicago is one of the best places. Love the people, city full of great museums, wonderful music.
Neely: Clearly writing was something you always wanted to do, but you went into theater. Toward what aim?
Dawn: I went there as a performer and came out here and initially worked as an actor for a couple of years before I realized that writing was what I really loved.
Neely: Doing what as a performer?
Dawn: A lot of voice-overs, got some pilots, some commercials. The commercials actually paid some of my college debt, which was nice.
Neely: What was your first job in the industry?
Dawn: My first job job? My first pay-the-bills job was actually on the production side and it was working for Linda Guber. I don’t know if this really applies. I was working for Linda Guber planning events for an entertainment-based non profit that used entertainment to address issues and problems in education.
Neely: What about your acting?
Dawn: That was so long ago. I remember vaguely a May Company commercial; I’m not sure if that’s the first, though.
Neely: What pushed you over to the other side.
Dawn: Writing was something I always wanted to do and I enjoyed it more. Honestly, when I talk to my friends who are still actors, I never loved it enough to take the rejection. I was in a situation where I got a great part on a pilot written by William Broyles, Jr. and produced by John Sacret Young and didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t realize that could happen.
I was so naïve I thought “Oh my! You get a pilot and that’s it. You’ve got it made.” And when that didn’t happen, I realized that I didn’t love acting enough, didn’t love that method of storytelling enough to want to continue doing it.
All along I had continued writing and I loved writing. I love telling stories. So it made more sense to me to return to that.
Neely: Have you been lucky enough to have any mentors?
Dawn: I’ve had a lot of people who have been very kind to me, very generous with their time and their energy and their ideas. But I have not had a specific mentor, and I would like that, actually. I think as the nature of the business changes, it is helpful to have that kind of guidance.
Neely: Who and what are some of your influences in film and television?
Dawn: My influences, the things I like are all over the map. I am a huge fan of science fiction, murder mysteries and mystical realism. But, in the end, I also just love clever and interesting writing, anything that moves me to unexpected places.
I love Tim Burton. I love things done by Robert Zemekis. I love things by Jonathan Demme. There’s a writer named LaGravanese who I think is brilliant and anything he does I will watch.
I like old movies (I tend to like the classics) – anything by Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock. But then I also like movies like “The Sandlot” and “Field of Dreams,” “Wedding Crashers. “Like Water for Chocolate” is one of my favorite movies. Those are some of the influences.
For TV writers… I’m a “Law and Order” junkie; I will watch “Law and Order” any time of day – any one of the “Law and Orders.” In fact my husband was a little worried about me at one point because I was watching them so much. I’m a big fan of JJ Abrams, David Chase, “The Sopranos.” I love “Dexter.” Of course the old stuff like “The Twilight Zone.” I think Rockne O’Bannon is great. “Alien Nation” was one of my favorite series.
Neely: If you haven’t read the article about Rockne on the blog, you need to go to it.
Dawn: I haven’t.
Neely: It covers his brilliant script called "Cult".
Dawn: Great! I love him. I just think he’s fabulous.
Neely: I agree.
Dawn: My husband’s a sitcom guy and I’m not really a big comedy person. But when I do sit down and watch comedy, I love Larry David. He’s so funny and yet so painful to watch. I grew up watching “M.A.S.H.”, and that has always been a favorite. It really affected the way I look at comedy, at writing in general. Now my husband has gotten me watching “Big Bang Theory” again because of the science. (Neely laughs) And I hate to admit how much I like it. But I would say those are the things that have influenced me; the things I like.
Neely: What about literary influences?
Dawn: I am a big short story person. I love short stories. As far back as I can remember I preferred to pick up a collection of short stories versus a novel. So, Flannery O’Connor, Zora Neal Hurston, Last Exit to Brooklyn…Hubert Selby…
Neely: I hope that Roald Dahl is on there.
Dawn: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know…
Neely: I’m not talking about the kids books (which I love), I’m talking about his adult short stories. He was known for those long before he wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His stories are deliciously dark.
Dawn: I’m not aware of them.
Neely: So many of his short stories were adapted for the original “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Two of my favorites are “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “The Man from the South” (which starred a very early Steve McQueen and the delightful Peter Lorre). You should pick up a copy of his various anthologies. I think the most popular stories are found in Kiss Kiss and Someone Like You; there’s also The Best of Roald Dahl and the stories from his own “Tales of the Unexpected” that ran on television from 79-81. But given your bent for the noir side, you should look at those old Alfred Hitchcock episodes; they’re all on DVD.
Dawn: I’m writing it down.
Other short story artists I love are O’Henry…
Neely: He wrote the story that “The Cisco Kid” was based on (“The Caballeros Way”), although I don’t recall him writing those immortal lines, “Oh Cisco!” “Oh Pancho!”
Dawn: …and Octavia Butler is a special favorite.
Neely: I’m not acquainted with her.
Dawn: Octavia Butler is an African American woman who wrote science fiction, all set in the near distant future in Los Angeles. She wrote a book called Kindred. I think the first time I read it was easily 10 years ago and it really left a mark on me. She also has a series called The Parable of the Sower.
I had read a fair amount of science fiction and I think what struck me was that hers was science fiction that didn’t feel like science fiction. It felt like a great exploration of the human condition and the when and where of the circumstance could be timeless. I remember being sort of obsessive there for awhile by how much of her work I was reading. And I think it took my writing in a different direction. It definitely made me a little darker in terms of how I looked at things. So those are probably my main literary influences; the short stories and the science fiction.
Neely: What are you reading right now?
Dawn: I am doing two things. My children, my oldest just entered junior high school…
Neely: (laughing)…good luck with that!
Dawn: Yeah, I know. I’m scared. Nicole is reading these YA novels and I’m starting to read them as well. I’ve been going through the Harry Potter and Twilight series, and she just finished a book called Countdown about the Cuban missal crisis. I’m reading along with her.
And then I’m going retro. I never read Bebe Moore Campbell when she was popular, like in the late or early 90s, so I’m going back and reading her now. I just finished reading her book called Brothers and Sisters. I had a chance to meet her right before she died, so as I’m reading it, I’m reflecting back on that meeting.
Neely: Any other favorite past books that you’ve read?
Dawn: Many, many, too many. Oddly enough, well no, that’s not true because there are a lot of adults who love the Harry Potter books…
Neely: I did.
Dawn: … I love the Harry Potter books, O’Henry short stories, anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
There’s another writer named Tananarive Due. Talk about cyber stalking actually working! I didn’t really stalk her but I did find her on the internet. I had read one of her books and wanted to contact her because I loved this book and I wanted to try and pitch it as a movie. So I found her on the internet and she responded! We struck up a friendship. Her books are just fabulous. There’s one in particular called The Between which, again, is very dark and very interesting and very layered. That’s definitely one of my favorites.
Neely: What are you watching right now?
Dawn: When I’m in the heat of writing something, I tend to watch nonfiction because I don’t want other people’s stories crowding out the stories in my head! I watch news – MSNBC, Nightline. I’m hooked on that faux newsy show “What Would You Do?” with John Quiñones. I also watch “Nova” and anything on HGTV, TLC and Food Network. My guilty pleasures in reality TV are “Toddlers and Tiaras” and “Extreme Couponing.” They are like a train wreck you can’t turn away from!
My new favorite in scripted drama is “Being Human” (the American version). I’m late to the table on that, but I’m trying to catch up now. And I love watching Masterpiece Mysteries. I used to watch them as a kid with my mother and it brings back fun memories to revisit those shows. Plus, the English storytelling has a different feel than shows done here. It feels good to watch programs with a different pacing from time to time.
Neely: What about past favorites?
Dawn: I loved “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “The Bernie Mac Show,” “All in the Family,” “M.A.S.H.” and “Star Trek. Also, “I Love Lucy,” “Get Smart,” and “The Honeymooners.” We’re big cartoon fans in my house so Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes are popular with us, as wells as cartoons like “The Flintstones.”
Neely: What are you working on now?
Dawn: One project that I’m working on right now is a feature script called “Cheerless.” It was a chance to have fun with my high school experience. It’s a dark satire about high school life – live losers, dead cheerleaders and high school the way you remember hating it. (Neely laughs) It’s been optioned by Picture Play Films and they’re putting it together as a package. Some exciting things are happening with it right now. I’m hoping to see it move forward very soon.
I also just finished writing another spec pilot called “Town & Gown” which is about my experience growing up in New Haven as a “Lucy Local.” That’s what they called the people who lived there but weren’t at the university. I’ve always wanted to explore that experience. I felt like an outsider because I wasn’t at Yale but then I was able to see it from the insider’s point of view because my parents were there. I’m starting to pitch that now.
I have a couple of other things I want to explore. I’d like to write a YA novel. I have one that I’m about 70 pages into, but I have to tell you, the YA novel scares the @#$% out of me. (laughing) It really does; it’s that format. But I’m enjoying the story and the process. For me, there’s a big learning curve when going from TV and film to novel writing.
Neely: It sounds like you’re keeping quite busy.
I’ve known your writing for several years (bet you didn’t know that) and you have so much talent that I know more people will sit up and take notice, just as the WGA did. Thanks for spending the time with me.
Dawn: Well thank you. I appreciate it.
Dawn also writes a blog about family life. Take a look at Three Ring Circus.
