Some stories take longer to understand. That's where I write. Gwen Carmichael, screenwriter and storyteller.

For me ~
Most stories don't begin with a blank page.

They begin with things I can't quite fit together yet. A photograph. A conversation I overheard. A newspaper clipping. A place I didn't want to leave. A line in a book. A question I keep returning to.

I carry them around for a while. Some stay with me for years.

Eventually they find each other on the page.

The beginning is always today.

Mary Shelley

A journal open on a wooden desk with the handwritten line ‘Some stories take longer to understand,’ beside a candle, a mug, and baby's breath at golden hour.

My stories wander between genres, but they almost always find their way back to identity, belonging, and the choices that shape us.

GWEN

A Short Introduction

I've been fascinated by stories for as long as I can remember.

Not only the ones we tell each other. The ones I find in books, in a line of poetry I can't stop repeating, in a song that arrives at exactly the right moment.

They stay long after the page is turned or the music stops. Months or years later, experience gives them new meaning and they come back to me. Those are the stories I never seem to forget, and the ones I most like to write.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Mary Oliver · Evidence

These days I write screenplays, essays, and whatever else curiosity decides to leave on my doorstep.

If I'm not traveling, you'll find me with coffee, a notebook, my dog, and entirely too many tabs open, researching something wonderfully specific.

Current & Upcoming Stories

There is a spectacle greater than the sea, it is the sky; there is a spectacle greater than the sky, it is the interior of the soul.

Victor Hugo · Les Misérables

Don't Eat the Crickets

Animated Feature | Family Adventure / Noir Comedy / Caper

Four nights before fumigation, a starving tree frog who has secretly spared every cricket she was fed must lead them out through the walls of a family townhouse, while her body gives out and the boy who loves her prepares to give her away.

She's a frog. The crickets are supper. She'd rather die than eat them, and she might. Don't Eat the Crickets turns an ordinary family townhouse into a world of towering obstacles, unlikely alliances, and impossible choices.

Under Renovation

Feature Screenplay | Coastal Noir

When a guest is crushed by falling furniture at a half-gutted Florida motel, the assistant manager documenting the death discovers her own signature in the chain of neglect that caused it and must decide whether to expose the truth.

A story of the modern issue: when someone dies unexpectedly, there is usually an entire digital life left behind yet the person no longer has the ability to provide context. Its heart lies in the moral choices people make when truth, loyalty, and self-preservation collide.

The Hawthorn Berry Tales

Children's Book Series

A cozy collection of illustrated stories where little animals discover big truths about kindness, courage, belonging, patience, and home. Created with my daughter, Hayesley.

For children who are growing up and the grown-ups still growing too.

Spin to Win

Television Pilot | Satirical Sci-Fi

At a public relations company where every employee's worth is measured by an AI-driven "Spin Score," one young strategist begins questioning whether the most dangerous stories are the ones we tell or the ones we're told.

A story that asks who gets to shape the narrative and what happens when truth becomes something that can be scored, optimized, and sold.

Gravity of Love

Book & Feature Screenplay

A science-fiction adventure that begins with an impulsive alien teenager and becomes a story about family, forgiveness, and finding your place in the universe.

And, that love in all forms is the most profound and unyielding force in the universe.

Heir of Nowhere

Historical Fiction | In Development

Set between eighteenth-century Scotland and colonial America, Heir of Nowhere follows a young heir who gambles away his future and crosses an ocean in search of reinvention, only to discover that becoming someone new always comes at a cost.

Inspired by a branch of my own family history.

The Chair

Feature Screenplay | Contained Psychological Thriller

A believer in protocol and procedure is selected to validate the institution's Terminal Demonstration Protocol, only to discover the system was never designed to protect the people inside it.

A contained psychological thriller that explores institutional trust and the ways ordinary people become complicit in extraordinary harm.

A speckled ceramic mug, an open sketchbook, and a lantern on weathered wood as the sun sets over the ocean.

Now Playing

Record Player

Seasonal House Playlist

Vol. V, Autumn 2026

Come in. The leaves are beginning to turn. The music's already playing.

Open in Apple Music

The Porch

A space of gathering and growing.

Light. Sound of birds. Writing. Listening.

This is the home of In The Margins, a collection of essays, observations, photographs, and quiet discoveries shared as snippets. Some will remain just as they are. Others grow into larger stories, screenplays, or books.

If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

Toni Morrison · Ohio Arts Council, 1981

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A weathered white rocking chair with a cream cushion, an open notebook and pen, a speckled ceramic mug, and a fern in a terracotta pot on a wooden porch in soft afternoon light.

Where observations meet the page and conversations continue.

The Hallway

Along the Way

But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

John Muir · Steep Trails

Collected Elsewhere

On the Pinboard

A few pins that caught my eye.

The Marvelous Ordinary

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Santa Monica Pier ferris wheel rising above the beach and Pacific Ocean on a clear blue day. — Santa Monica

The Eiffel Tower lit gold at night above Parisian rooftops and glowing windows. — Paris

A spiral ceiling of curved balconies and pin lights winding upward toward a bright oculus.

A small dog at the top of weathered beach stairs watching a pastel sunrise over the ocean. — First light

A red lacquered sculpture of two hands forming a heart against a dark background.

A sunlit narrow street lined with tall ochre buildings and shuttered windows.

The checkered plaza of Place Masséna stretching toward pastel buildings under a bright sky.

The Paramount Theatre marquee on Congress Avenue in Austin with a line of people waiting outside. — Austin

A hotel marquee board reading 'Keep Austin weird and well rested' beneath a red neon sign.

The striped porte-cochère and red carpet entrance of the Beverly Hills Hotel after dark.

A mirrored architectural ceiling reflecting a blue Lisbon courtyard and arched walkway. — Lisbon

A grave in Père Lachaise blanketed with flowers, photographs, and handwritten notes. — Père Lachaise

Golden clouds and sunbeams seen through an airplane window high above the earth. — Somewhere between here and there

A red and white Arctic Circle marker glowing among snow-dusted evergreens and string lights. — Arctic Circle

A marble bust of a young woman on a wooden pedestal in warm gallery light.

Stage 32 Official Selection badge for 'The Best of Stage 32' lookbook, featuring a yellow typewriter.

The arched entrance of a Lisbon bookstore with a framed poem on the white wall. — A poem in the doorway

A slant of orange light falling across a rough concrete wall.

An open highway stretching toward distant hills under a pale summer sky.

A golden sunset breaking through clouds over an empty stretch of shoreline.

A view over the terracotta rooftops and green hills of Nice toward the Mediterranean.

A glossy navy gorilla sculpture holding a pink heart outside a lit historic building at night.

Tall palms lining the sand under a deep blue sky near the Santa Monica beach path.

Sunlight bursting through narrow willow leaves against a bright blue sky.

Correspondence

If something here sparked an idea or you'd simply like to say hello, I’d love to hear from you.

Whether it's a writing project, a collaboration, a playlist recommendation, or a story you've been carrying around for years, my inbox is always open.

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.

E.B. White · Charlotte's Web

Thanks for stopping by, Gwen