Introduce Yourself : Sean McElhiney by Sean McElhiney

I'm Sean McElhiney. My first screenplay, "Soul to Keep" won first place in the inaugural Scriptapalooza Screenwriting Competition way back at the end of the twentieth century. I have since written two other screenplays, but have moved away from screenwriting and focus these days mostly on writing short stories. I'm also working on a novel. I still dream of success on the silver screen but the older I get the more I realize that what I truly like to write is not blockbuster material. But when I see a movie like "Nebraska," or "The Descendants," or "The Way, Way Back," I think there is hope. We're all looking for a lightning strike. So we beat on... Scriptapalooza was GREAT. They held my hand for a year. Lots of folks read my screenplay. I worked on re-writes with an agent's assistant at UTA; I had a meeting with a woman who had been the production manager on "Titanic"; I received genuine interest from two production companies; and I was considered for re-writes on another, similar movie by an upstart production company,, but nothing came of any of it. I heard "What else do you have?"; "This is what I'm looking for now, can you write me one of these?"; "I loved it but my boss doesn't," and lots of other things like that. I shot myself in the foot on a phone interview for the production company when I got nervous and instead of answering their questions I pulled back and said, "wait, let me try to tell you this my way." It just came out so wrong. I make my money these days (not a hell of a lot of it, but it's a living) as a radio announcer on a country music station in the Keene, NH; Brattleboro, VT; Greenfield, MA radio market. I once hosted "The Psychic Friends Radio Network." That was a trip, let me tell you. We broadcast from Los Angeles in a studio that I was told had been built for Tom Snyder after he lost his TV show back in the early 80s. I've already made some fortuitous connections on Stage 32, and, well... you never know.