Best Laid Plans

Having made a name for himself on the independent film circuit with his 2009 Sundance feature Children of Invention and sophomore film Cold Comes the Night, starring Bryan Cranston, writer and director Tze Chun came into prominence during a time when the film industry was facing a seismic shift, forcing him to make some equally life-altering decisions about how to achieve both creative fulfillment and professional stabilit...

Hrishikesh Hirway is best known as the creator and host of the popular podcast Song Exploder, a show that speaks to musicians about their unique process in bringing a song to life. What fewer may realize is that Hrishikesh is a musician himself, who has toured and released music under the name The One AM Radio since 1999, and composed music for film and television. But with the success of Song Exploder, instead of focusing...

Aaron Perrino is the frontman of The Sheila Divine, the Boston-based band that won awards, toured the globe with the likes of Morrisey and Weezer, and lit up college radio stations around the turn of the Century. Although successful in many ways, The Sheila Divine never reached the heights its frontman had hoped for, pushing Perrino to seek other, more stable pursuits as his personal world quickly changed during the summer...

Chef Diana Dávila didn’t just cook up her career in seconds: it took planning, the right ingredients, a lot of trial and error, and creating opportunities so that others could see her as the talented leader she knew she was. Now the Executive Chef and owner of Mi Tocaya Antojeria, a celebrated Mexican restaurant in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, Dávila discusses what it took to stick to her guns, knowing that wh...

A popular word of caution in writing MFAs is that it takes “ten years out in the cold” before anyone can expect success. For screenwriter and former film critic April Wolfe, that meant dozens of jobs, hundreds of cover letters, a dream opportunity as the head film critic of LA Weekly, an unexpected corporate takeover, a newfound creative collaboration, and an opportunity writing a greenlit movie for Universal/Blumhouse. He...

​​When Tiffany accepted Will’s proposal, she wasn’t just marrying the charismatic frontman of an ascending alt-country band, but–as she was cautioned–the entire band, too. For Tiffany, this was hardly a problem…she believed in Will, his music, and most of all, their future together. But after a honeymoon in New Orleans, where Will’s mental health sent their world into a spiral, all of that was left was doubt. In the afterm...

Legendary comic Bobcat Goldthwait created a persona so original and outrageous that it catapulted him to fame before he had even turned 20. And while laughing audiences tried to figure out who was behind the strange and often surreal persona that would scream, stutter, and wheeze on stage, TV, and film, it was Bobcat himself that did the most questioning…eventually leading him on a new path that required personal reflectio...