Why I Write

I've always been fascinated by stories that ask why ordinary people make extraordinary choices. Growing up on The Twilight Zone, I was less interested in the twists than in the questions they left behind. What would make someone risk everything for the person they love? At what point does protection become obsession? Why do we cling to the past even when it refuses to let us move forward? Those are the questions that continue to shape the stories I tell.

Line of Descent began with a house, not a horror story.

In my twenties, I moved away from my family in Southern California and into an old house in Fort Collins, Colorado, with a group of roommates who gradually became something more. We weren't related by blood, but over time they became the family I chose. The friendships I found in that house became the emotional blueprint for the chosen family at the heart of Line of Descent.

Horror isn’t the point. Humanity is.

While Line of Descent is a supernatural thriller filled with possession, witchcraft, and an ancient curse, those elements exist to explore something deeply human: the families we inherit, the families we build, and the choices we're willing to make for the people we call our own.

I don't write horror to frighten people. I write horror because extraordinary circumstances have a way of revealing ordinary truths. Strip away the possession, the witchcraft, and the curse, and Line of Descent is ultimately about people searching for belonging, struggling with grief, and discovering that the family we choose can be just as powerful as the one we're born into.

The question I always come back to is: What are we willing to do for the people we love?

If audiences leave Line of Descent remembering the scares, I'll be thrilled. But if they leave thinking about the people they would fight for—and the family they've chosen along the way—then I've told the story I wanted to tell.