Michael Reed McLaughlin

After a near death experience in his late twenties, when his sports car skidded off a cliff on Mulholland Highway, he decided to quit what he was doing and go to film school. While a student, his first short film, The Fourth Trimester - set in a not-too-distant future in which the Constitution has redefined the right to life as beginning 20 years after conception- won him a Student Emmy for the best dramatic short for his region. Just before graduating, he took a small crew to the Bahamas to make his first feature, Of Love & Betrayal, which was shot on a 76' schooner and filmed in 35mm Cinemascope. The project was tied up with legal problems and then shelved until 2010, when he was finally able to release a director's cut that he was happy with. Michael is also the author of several high fantasy novels, including the Hero Sagas trilogy penned under the nom de plume of Sterling Drake.