Where are you from?

I was born in Tennessee, actually, but I like to say I’m from the Greater Brunswick area. I’ve lived in Topsham, Lisbon Falls…

How long did you live in Lisbon Falls?

I was there for five years, elementary school and junior high, basically. I have some great little-league memories from Lisbon Falls. That’s what I associate with Lisbon Falls: little league.

What position did you play?

Center fielder, shortstop, second base – what I really liked was third base. And I pitched, which is what all shortstops do [in little league].

Catcher?

No, I tried it a couple times, but it didn’t work out very well because I had to wear glasses, and I wasn’t advanced enough to wear contacts.

Yeah. And in little league, kids hit you with bats…

Yeah, they hit you with bats, hit you with balls…

Speaking of balls, you’re moving to New York, right? Ever live in a big city before?

In my junior year at Williams College, I was in a program that required me to live in New York for a semester. It was a pilot program. This professor came up with the idea of having a small number of students live in the city and take classes on the history and sociology of New York City. In addition to that we had to do field work. My ‘field’ was ABC News. I was an intern there – well, really, I was spying on them.

Who were you spying for?

For my professor. He wanted us to acquire those skills of observation and analysis and then use it on workplace culture, basically.

What did you learn at ABC News?

I learned that I didn’t want to go into network television. I learned a bunch of things about what you have to do to get ahead in the corporate environment. And it’s not exactly a meritocracy – although, I worked with a lot of producers and they liked the anonymity of their job, they liked not being recognized for their work because they were storytellers and that’s what they were interested in. They were happy just to have that space to tell their stories in.

You’re a storyteller, right?

I am indeed.

What kind of a storyteller are you? What kind of stories do you tell?

As a screenwriter, the kind of stories that I’m telling are about people who are roughly my age, or who act like they’re my age and they think they know things, they think they’re very smart, maybe a little bit better than the people around them. But in reality, they don’t know very much. So the screenplay is the vehicle that humbles them. They realize that they don’t know very much after all.

And as a journalist?

As a journalist, the kind of stories I’m attracted to, ultimately – I like flawed people. I’m drawn to people’s weaknesses, but also what makes them tick, that sort of thing.

So as a screenwriter, have you had anything produced?

No, but back in January – I’d been talking to this producer on and off for a couple of years, and when the writers’ strike came around earlier this year, the producer had an idea – but there was no around to write it, so he called and offered it to me. So I wrote the screenplay, knowing that it would be optioned for production. So I wrote it, it was optioned, and the producers are now in the process of going about trying to figure out how to make the thing. At this stage, I’m not very involved in the process. So, yeah, I’ve never had anything produced, but I feel like I’m knocking at that door a little bit.

Are you going to New York specifically to be a screenwriter?

I think, ultimately. In a couple of years, I can see myself going to film school. Now, when you talk to people who’ve gone to film school, people who have made it in film or whatever, they tell you that you don’t need to go to film school – that you shouldn’t go to film school. I’m pretty good about studying up on craft – which isn’t to say that there’s nothing to learn; that’s probably not true – but I think I need to go to film school just to establish more networks with creative people, who are interested in the same thing that I am – basically, making good films. So really that’s kind of a not-so-long-term possibility.
The real reason I’m going to New York – it has to do with professional opportunity. I have a lot of friends who are living in the city, who are entrepreneurial-minded and are interested in creating that kind of creative community that can sustain and produce cool, thought-provoking things. I’m talking to those people, and that’s something that I want to do. I also just love the city. I love the time that I spent there in 2005 and I always knew that I’d want to go back there and try to make my way there – like everyone else my age, I guess.

You’re going to live in Harlem?

Yeah. I’m going to be moving to a place in Harlem that a friend of mine from Williams [College] has. He’s studying stock-brokering; he’s interested in business and finance and stuff. When we graduated, we always knew that we wanted to someday get a place together. He’s probably my closest friend from Williams. We’re very different, but we’ve always talked about getting this place together...

Where did you go to high school?

Waynflete [School, located in Portland]. Whenever I’m asked about Waynflete, I like to take the opportunity to talk about how great an institution it is. When I got to Williams – Williams was very hard, first of all. But when I got to Williams I felt very prepared, and Waynflete had a lot to do with that. And I also feel like I’m a pretty fair-minded person, someone who is interested in cultivating a wide range of ideas, about issues that I may think I’m an expert in, but in reality may not be. And the way I work that out is by getting a range of opinions on the matter. That may not seem like a very big deal, but I definitely learned that approach at Waynflete, just arguing with my classmates.

Now it should be said that, at Waynflete, I was the only black person in my class until maybe my sophomore year, at which point I was joined by another black person. And every time I was at some kind of function at Waynflete, someone would always ask me, or allude to the fact that I was now one of two black people in my class, and how did that made me feel? That was something I had to learn to deal with, as opposed to learning to deal with being the only black person there – which you would think would be kind of an adjustment. It wasn’t, really. There aren’t very many black people in Maine. So going to school in Maine, that’s just a part of what that is. But it was an adjustment, learning how to deal with that issue, having to respond to [people wanting to talk about the [[vagaries and exigencies]] of suddenly becoming one of two black people at Waynflete].

But what I would always tell those people was, that diversity to me meant a diversity of ideas, as opposed to what I look like. And that’s something I picked up at Waynflete. So I took that to Williams. Now there were certainly more black people at Williams, but a lot of those people came from the same background, or shared the same worldview and opinions about a lot of things. So in one sense, Williams was more diverse, and in another sense it wasn’t.

Williams was, like, an intellectual monoculture?

Kind of. A lot of small liberal arts colleges are. But in any event I’ve learned to embrace other people’s opinions as a way of cultivating diversity in my own life.

So when did you start working at the Coastal Journal?

Last August. I did one freelance article on Land’s End [Gift Shop, Bailey Island], a very soft article. I was working at Starbucks at the time. I’d worked for Starbucks on and off when I was at Williams, and I met [CJ editor Gina Hamilton’s] husband Chris there – I consider Gina and Chris close friends. Chris knew that I liked to write, he’d read some of my things. And it just so happened that Gina needed some help at the paper just then, and that’s how I got that job. I started in September as a staff reporter.

How’s it been?

It’s been great. It’s an ideal job for a kid just out of school who’s interested in the written word. I got to exercise a lot of creativity over the stuff I wrote. Gina’s always been very supportive of my ideas. The paper is small and intimate enough that you learn a great deal about what the other departments are doing, there’s not a lot of office politics to be played…

And it’s sooo busy.

Right, there’s so much to do for so few people, and that’s sort of a part of it. But it’s been great reporting on, basically, my home town, which I always took for granted when I was a kid. All sorts of things about this place I had no idea about, because I took it for granted. So reporting on it was really eye-opening. Now that I’m moving, I’m especially glad that I got to do that for the last year.

Maybe you’ve said this already, but what was the best part of this job?

The best part was just being given the opportunity to write and to use my voice. That’s a privilege; that’s not something everybody gets to do. So I took that very seriously. It was very rewarding, and also very humbling as well. Because it’s such a small community, and everyone knows everyone and so you’re especially conscious of your audience.

Have you had any bad reactions to anything you’ve written?

Not really. The response has largely been positive. There’ve been a response or two that have not been positive, but that’s to be expected. And furthermore, that’s what’s good about weekly newspapers, that dialogue between the readers and the writers. That’s what makes it so vital.