From an early age, I’ve been fascinated with all things entertainment, obsessing over childhood favorites like Star Wars, The Lucy Show, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, often either drawing character likenesses or writing stories and convincing my friends to act them out during recess.
That love of TV and Film grew to a burgeoning passion for entertainment writing when I joined my high school creative writing magazine and yearbook staff.
In college, I further expanded my interests by not only becoming Entertainment Editor of the university’s student-published weekly, but also by taking journalism, studio art and graphic design classes. Heck, one of my English papers was on the history and elevation of TV’s M*A*S*H into a pop culture phenomenon.
After obtaining a double-degree in Entertainment Journalism and Graphic Design with a double-minor in Studio Art and Southern Literature, I landed my first post-college job as the Sports and Entertainment Editor of my hometown newspaper. That’s right, I said Sports….that’s actually the position the paper had available but I convinced them to hire me and let me also create an Entertainment section for them as well.
My writing career got sidetracked for a few years when I began working for a major music retailer in their book division. Beginning as a sales clerk, I eventually moved up their corporate ladder to become a buyer and event coordinator.
After several years, I escaped retail and, seeing as how I was in Nashville, ventured into the music business, first for a well-known record label, then at an artist management company, then briefly for the first two seasons of a certain talent competition reality series and later the biggest country music television network.
With more than a decade of music business in the rearview mirror, I decided to get back to my love of writing. My return to the written word came in 2008 when I was hired to cover Arts and Entertainment for a nationally syndicated online news service. After more than 1000 reviews, interviews and feature articles, that site folded into another music-centric entity.
Most recently I became the primary contributor for NashvilleArtsCritic.com. During my two years with them, I published more than 100 articles. When I got word that the founder of that site was shuttering the business, I decided it was time to venture out on my own and that’s where you’ve landed…JHPEntertainment.com.