Denny’s War

Based on true events, Denny’s War is a semi-fictional story based on the life of my father who died in 2020.

Everyone of my fathers eight siblings would tell you, “there was always something… off about Denny.”

This deeply personal story will cover the undiagnosed mental health issues he dealt with while facing his toughest challenges: the death of his father when he was only 16, volunteering to go to Vietnam at 18, and honorably discharged at 19, diagnosed with schizophrenia at 20. He would pull himself together and marry a woman his family rejected, then become the father of 4 children.

Now that I am grown with my own four children (one of them with Autism spectrum level 1), I believe that my father was Autistic long before anyone knew what it was or what it meant. I also believe that the trauma he witnessed in war is the reason he developed schizophrenia. I have also learned that the U.S. military does not screen for Autism.

I am not sure if this project will be a book or screenplay. I am still trying to gather my father’s service records and getting stories from his siblings. There is still so much I don’t know about his life, but I do know that he would want me to tell his story.

Seeing Stars

A comedy screenplay about a woman who meets her favorite celebrity and ends up being stalked by him.