Received his B.A. from the University of Virginia where he had a double major in English Honors and Russian Language and Literature. Did graduate work at the University of Virginia and UCLA. Broke in as a writer, penning freelance restaurant reviews and food articles for the Los Angeles Times. Also wrote for The New York Times, Food and Wine, Longevity Magazine and other publications. With the help of L.A. attorney Susan Grode, wrote two books which were published by Chronicle Books: Great Vegetables From the Great Chefs; Great Desserts From the Great Chefs. Took Robert McKee's Story Structure Class and got his breakthrough with his eighth script, The Chosen Few (2002), which was produced in 2001 by Robin Podder's I-VU Pictures on which he also served as co-producer. His next film was The Counting House, produced by RAI Cinema, April 2005, starring Maggie Q and Bryon Mann. It was released in 2006. He then wrote Tricks of Love, starring Natasha Lyonne, which won Best Picture and Best Supporting for Natasha at Monaco. His most notable writing credit was for Walking With the Enemy, a Holocaust drama based on a true story, and starring Ben Kingsley, Burn Gorman and Jonas Armstrong. He was one of the first writers on the animation feature "Heroes of the Golden Masks", starring Christopher Plummer, Ron Perelman and Patton Oswalt. He also wrote the action-adventure drama "Amazon Queen", which won Best Picture at the Barcelona Film Festival, 2021. In 2022 he was hired to write the historical drama about the Miranda Warning, "Miranda's Victim" and became the film's Executive Producer. The film stars Abigail Breslin, Taryn Manning, Emily VanCamp, Luke Wilson, Andy Garcia, Donald Sutherland, Ryan Phillippe and Kyle MacLachlan.