Storybeat with Steve Cuden

Writer-director Jonathan L. Bowen started a film review site in high school, which he continued into college, ultimately posting more than 600 movie reviews. After moving to L.A. to pursue a film career, he started making independent music videos, then established a production company, JLB Media Productions, that specializes in business-to-business marketing and web videos. 

His music videos, short films, and features have been scre...

Christian Schu is a dedicated filmmaker who sees filmmaking and advertising as storytelling arts. Since becoming a commercial filmmaker in 2015, he’s focused on creating narratives that deeply engage viewers through emotion.

Christian’s career includes working in virtual studios, sporting events, and collaborations with popular German business speakers. 

Since 2019, Christian has been producing visually stunning content for top hi-fi...

Kiesha Lalama is an internationally recognized dancer, choreographer, and teacher who has created works for stage, film and TV. She is currently Point Park University’s interim Dean of Theatre, Film and Animation, and the Executive Producer of the Pittsburgh Playhouse. 

Kiesha co-founded and has choreographed 15 years of Broadway’s the Jimmy Awards, which has reached over 120,000 students annually. 

She choreographed the feature film...

Bestselling historical fiction author Sharon Virts is a successful entrepreneur and visionary who, after more than twenty-five years in business, followed her passion for storytelling. She’s received numerous accolades for her commitment to historic preservation, earning national recognition for both her business achievements and philanthropic endeavors.

Beyond her business acumen, Sharon is a gifted visual artist, intertwining her ...

Drew Brody is an award-winning writer and producer whose films, web series, stage plays, and other live events in Los Angeles and New York have featured Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Jenny O’Hara, Bill Pullman, Sara Rue, Martin Sheen, James Gammon, and French Stewart, among many others. Drew has produced dozens of world premieres for the stage including two plays by Pulitzer Prize winning playwrights: It Wasn’t Proust by Sam Shepard, and...

The journalist Richie McGinniss has always craved action. As a reporter he’s found it – and a lot more – in the chaos of the streets, embedding himself with protestors to cover the most divisive and violent demonstrations in American history.

Richie may be a media professional of the new era, posting his intense, on-the-ground videos on social media, but he brings an old-school newsman’s credibility from his extensive professional e...

Cleo Childs released her spoken word poetry album, “Moving With” in May 2024. And her book, also called “Moving With,” is soon to be released. 

Both projects are the culmination of years of writing about the journey of grief Cleo experienced after losing her mother to Alzheimer’s when she was 28 years old. 

Cleo’s mom was an English major in college and her grandmother, who is also one of her editors, was an English teacher for 30 ye...

Gabby Gruen spent most of his professional life as a writer-producer inside the country’s most prominent ad agencies. 

After twenty years of elevating the brands of some of our most prestigious advertisers, and with the help of a Screenwriting MFA from UCLA, Gabby started writing screenplays. His original scripts found homes inside a major motion picture studio and on assignment for several less prominent purveyors of the cinematic ...

The very busy actress, Laila Robins, was recently seen in Ryan Murphy’s anthology series, American Horror Stories. She also has a recurring role as Colonel Grace Mallory on the hugely popular Amazon series, The Boys.  Laila starred opposite Amanda Seyfried in the Apple+ limited series, The Crowded Room and opposite Joshua Jackson and Alec Baldwin in the Hulu limited series, Dr. Death.  She also recurred memorably as Katarina Rostov...

Making a return for his third appearance on StoryBeat is the great jazz and world flutist, Michael Mason.  Michael’s been a professional musician and composer for forty years, while simultaneously working in the fire service of the Downers Grove, Illinois Fire Department, recently retiring at the rank of Lieutenant. Michael is one of the first responders from the Chicago area who flew to New York City just days after the destructio...

Doctor Tom Stein recently published his first book, Gratitude Is Not Enough, The True Story of a Belgian Family Forever Changed by a Band of American WWII Soldiers. The book focuses on the Remember Museum ‘39-‘45 in Clermont, Belgium that was opened by Marcel and Mathilde Schmetz, better known as the M&Ms by soldiers in a U.S. Army Company of the First Infantry Division who were briefly quartered on Marcel’s family farm in Dece...

Robert Monroe worked for more than a decade as a New York casting director and talent executive. His credits include projects with the Walt Disney Company, the John Houseman Theater, the Annual MDA Telethon, and the United Paramount Network.  

Robert won a Clio Award for casting the Best Performance for Children for a Dole Pre-Cut Vegetables commercial.

Robert eventually moved to Portland, Maine to pursue a career as a photographer. ...

Screenwriter, producer, and podcaster Adam “Tex” Davis is best known for writing the screenplay of the cult rom-com classic Just Friends, which stars Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart, and Anna Faris. He also wrote the screenplay for the drama Gardener of Eden, which stars Lukas Haas and was produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way.  

A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Tex has contributed to over 25 feature film scripts and serv...

Adam Rosenbaum recently published his beautifully written book, The Ghost Rules. 

I’ve read The Ghost Rules and can tell you this is a thoroughly charming, fun and funny story about 12-year-old Elwood McGee, who never asked to have “ghost-sight,” but winds up seeing more than his share of drooling, mostly hilarious apparitions. 

Wonderful, lovable ghosts are everywhere in Adam’s joyful debut novel. Adam’s had a varied career, includi...

Documentary film director Laura Gabbert has made critically acclaimed films that deploy humor and emotion to tell penetrating, character-driven stories about American culture and society. 

Among her documentaries, Food and Country, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in October 2024. Laura’s film, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles, explores chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s collaboration with the Me...

L. A. Starks is the author of the award-winning Lynn Dayton thriller series that includes: 13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy, the multi-award-nominated Strike Price, The Second Law, and the recently released Winner’s Curse. 

            I’ve read Winner’s Curse and can tell you it’s an exciting adventure into the high stakes world of the oil and gas industry, with corporate intrigue, sabotage, and ruthless, power-hungry characters ...

Hal Ackerman is making his second appearance on StoryBeat. Hal spent thirty years teaching screenwriting in UCLA’s legendary screenwriting program. Along with Richard Walter and Lew Hunter, Hal helped launch the careers of many dozens of writers whose work you’ve seen on screens large and small. 

Hal has sold film and television material to all the outlets. His screenplay Holmeyer’s Bridge, holds the unofficial Guinness record for h...

David Paul Kirkpatrick is the former Walt Disney Studios production chief and also the former president of Paramount Pictures. He’s worked on more than 200 motion pictures and their screenplays, including such global franchises as Indiana Jones and Star Trek. 

David has guided countless adaptations of books and plays to movies including Forrest Gump, The Elephant Man, Ordinary People, and Terms of Endearment. He also won an Emmy and...

Theresa Griffin Kennedy is a longtime Portland, Oregon writer, author and occasional poet.  She works as a proofreader, developmental editor and is chief editor of Oregon Greystone Press. 

Theresa writes both creative nonfiction, including crime profiles, as well as literary fiction, specifically in the genre of domestic noir. Theresa sometimes writes essays about saving old buildings, and the environment, which includes a long essa...