I started my writing journey with a passion for storytelling and a background that gave me plenty to write about: medicine, military service, and decades spent around people facing some of the worst days of their lives.

Four story ideas sat in a file on my computer for a couple of decades while I worked full-time in radiology. It wasn't until 2019, a few years before retirement, that I started scribbling notes at work and transcribing them into a Word document in the evenings and on weekends.

I'm drawn to characters pushed far beyond what we imagine we could handle ourselves. I don't write traditional heroes. I'm interested in the people society overlooks, underestimates, or misunderstands. My stories tend to be less whodunit and more why-did-they-do-it—with a few sharp turns along the way.

I've been compared to Gillian Flynn, which I suspect has something to do with my affection for complicated, deeply flawed characters. My work has been categorized as psychological thriller, women's fiction, and military/medical thriller. Those labels are probably all accurate at one time or another.

My latest screenplay, The Feral Seventh, grew out of hundreds of hours of research into America's “Secret War” in Laos during the 1960s. While the Vietnam War raged next door, the United States was conducting a covert war in officially neutral Laos. American military personnel operated there under unusual and deliberately obscured arrangements, including men whose military identities were temporarily concealed while working under CIA authority. That forgotten corner of history became the foundation for The Feral Seventh.

Oddly enough, none of this started with a screenplay.

One day in 2018, while watching a movie, I had an ah-ha moment: Why not write the stories I'd always imagined as novels in screenplay format instead?

So I jumped in headfirst and learned everything I could about screenwriting. My first attempt at a novel, Spartan Mansion, morphed into a screenplay titled Dissension. My next screenplay, Carnage in D minor, began as another version of Dissension, this time with a female protagonist. And that became the story I eventually adapted into my first published novel.

(If you have to read that several times to catch up, I'll wait.)

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm a self-taught writer—unless you consider YouTube a legitimate teacher. I devoured everything I could get my hands on about the craft, including Stephen King, Anne Lamott, Verlyn Klinkenborg (my personal favorite), and The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Some are part writing instruction and part memoir—occasionally more memoir than instruction—but all gave me something useful. Some were cover-to-cover gold. You be the judge.

Long before I became a writer, I enlisted in the U.S. Army and served for almost five years. The Army provided the foundation for my entire career in radiology. I never served in a war zone, and I'm not a twenty-year veteran. But I'm proud to have served, and I'll always be indebted to the Army for the education, experiences, and life lessons it gave me.

Military service also runs through my family. One of my brothers retired from the Army after serving two tours in Iraq, and his experiences have inspired much of my writing. His wife is also a twenty-year Army veteran. My other brother served in the Marine Corps, and my father served in the Navy.

My dad was laid to rest with full military honors in 2024.

It was one of the saddest—and proudest—days of my life.

Work life

I spent almost four decades in the medical field. I started as an X-ray tech in the Army at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. Later, I cross-trained in CT and eventually went back to school to become a sonographer (ultrasound tech).

Over the years, I worked in several specialties, including vascular, OB/GYN, neonatal, and general ultrasound. As for settings, I've seen it all—from outpatient clinics to Level I trauma centers.

Before it was all over, I went from staff tech to traveler to supervisor to clinical instructor to management.

Nearly forty years in medicine gave me more than a career. It gave me a front-row seat to people at their strongest, their weakest, their funniest, their most frightened—and occasionally their absolute worst.

Writers call that research. I called it going to work.  Ahhh - the memories. 

    I started pitching 'Dissension' back in 2020. I spent way too much money chasing validation through screenwriting contests and I broke one of the cardinal rules - NEVER submit it before it's ready. That was an expensive lesson. But, with lots of perseverance and countless rewrites, the script actually started winning contests and getting the attention of production companies.

   One of those companies was Vesperia Films, with offices in L.A. and Vancouver, B.C. The cofounders, Dakota Daulby and Harrison Houde, contacted me and asked for a zoom meeting. Turns out, it was my writing they wanted, not my screenplay. Dakota and I have been working together since early 2025 and are confident we will have a movie in theaters someday - so stay tuned for updates.

Check out my interview with Oneal Walters on his Substack

"The Blue Snowsuit" https://thebluesnowsuit.substack.com/