It’s hard to write about one’s self in a general context. My life is like a many headed hydra of roles I have played in the world. I’ve led an interesting, but not terribly cohesive life so far. However, I can say it’s sure been fun.

I was born in Sleepy Hollow and raised in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, USA until I was 16, when I attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut, USA. I graduated with a B.A., double majoring in Film Studies and American Studies and was fortunate enough to study under two renowned scholars in those fields, Jeanine Basinger and Richard Slotkin respectively. At 20, I moved to Manhattan to work in public relations, primarily for Walt Disney/Touchstone Pictures, during the Golden Age of the Eisner/Katzenberg regime. It was also the height of the Bonfire of the Vanities era and I must say I participated in the madness of the 1980’s with the best of them. Ready to step off of the Masters of the Universe carousel after two whirlwind years, I made the great trek west to Los Angeles to work in movie development. I toiled in the trenches of low budget filmmaking for a year, and then worked my way up the ladder of a production company where I got to develop films like Hook, It Could Happen to You and Universal Soldier.

My negotiation to run another production company coincided with my husband’s announcement that he wanted to produce four TV movies in… New Zealand. I knew from my friends’ sad experiences that separation during location work is the quickest way to divorce, so we decided I’d go with him and naively thought after nine months of exploring the most beautiful country on Earth, I’d just come home and get another executive gig. Seven years, two hit shows, a new career and two kids later we finally came back to Los Angeles. The hit series were Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena – Warrior Princess. I wrote for the shows. I didn’t know I could write before that. In fact, because I’m dyslexic, I was told I’d never be a writer. So much for teachers, guidance counselors and psychometric tests.

We came back to the US and in 2001 my husband and I created Uncharted Entertainment with our partner Richard Taylor (five time Academy Award winner and four time BAFTA winner for make-up, costume and visual effects for Lord of the Rings and King Kong) who owns Weta Workshop, with Peter Jackson. I write TV pilots for Uncharted with Eric and our writing/producing partner, Belinda Todd. We’ve sold pilots as writers and/or producers to CBS, Fox, UPN, ABC Family, Comedy Central, Discovery and PAX. At present, we are developing Eldritch, Idaho at ABC Family for this season.

In the meantime, I discovered I had a lifelong leaning towards transhumanism, or as I prefer to call it, H+, even though I hadn’t heard of transhumanism before 2005. I’d always been an SF geek and I had been noodling an idea for a book since 1993, but life kept getting in the way. In 2005, I decided to commit to the novel (it’s like a marriage in that respect) and discovered there was a word for people working toward a positive, technologically advanced future, like the characters in my book. I have come to realize that how we deal with the accelerating technological changes in society over the next few decades is the most important issue to face humanity in this century and not a bad subject to devote one’s self to.

There are many bizarre aspects of my life that have no place in a short biography. I’ve been chased by pirates in the South China Sea. Mine was the last wedding to be planned by Martha Stewart, before her meteoric rise and fall and rise. I saw Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky in Reykjavik. (Is this where I can admit I fell asleep? It was past my bedtime.) The CIA tried to recruit me and failed miserably. I am a citizen of both the US and New Zealand. As a teenager, I got to know George Lucas and his now ex-wife, Marcia, and they are the reason I do what I do. (I’m starting to feel a bit like Zelig…) I was born a Jew, raised an agnostic, joined in marriage to a Lutheran by a Presbyterian and attempt to practice my own half-baked Buddhism. I met my husband on a blind date the second week I lived in Los Angeles. We’ve been married 16 years and he is my soulmate and partner in all things and the reason my children, Nathaniel and Hannah, are so wonderful. There’s much weirder stuff than all this, but I don’t know you well enough yet. ;-)

Then again, maybe my life isn’t so odd. Maybe that’s just life. Well, then…

L’Chaim! (To Life!)
PJ Manney