Just got the news: my pilot What’s Buried Beneath the Pines has placed as a Quarterfinalist in the 2025 Script Pipeline TV Writing Competition.
That’s two major competitions in a row recognizing this project—and I don’t take it lightly. WBBTP is a Southern Gothic thriller with teeth. It’s about bloodlines and betrayal, about the land that raised you and the secrets that rot beneath it. It’s about what we inherit, whether we want to or not.
This script came from a personal place. Some of it’s fiction. A lot of it’s not. I wrote it as a way of working through legacy—the kind we’re born into and the kind we choose to leave behind. It started as therapy. Now it’s catching fire.
The Script Pipeline TV Writing Competition is one of the most competitive platforms for emerging television writers. They’ve helped launch real careers by connecting writers to managers, producers, and development execs actively looking for original voices. So to land among the top submissions—especially in a field as stacked as this—isn’t just encouraging. It’s momentum.
What’s cool about this recognition is it doesn’t come from hype or connections—it comes from the work. From the pages. From the characters I lived with for over a year. Gray Harris, the black sheep son of a timber baron, haunted by ghosts both real and metaphorical. Daisy, a diner waitress whose scars run deeper than her smile. Tony, the brother who stayed. They’re not just characters—they’re pieces of people I’ve known. Maybe even pieces of me.
The project started with a simple idea: what happens when you go home to bury your father and end up digging up everything he tried to hide? That became the heart of the story. A generational reckoning. A buried legacy unearthed. A town that turns on its own to protect the myth of who they think they are.
It’s a slow-burn, character-driven thriller, soaked in Southern atmosphere. The pinewoods are heavy, the air is thick, and every smile hides something sharp. If you’ve ever driven a two-lane backroad and felt like the trees were watching, you already get the tone.
The pilot is just the beginning. WBBTP is designed as the entry point to a full anthology series called Revenance, where each season unearths the buried sins of rural American families. Think True Detective meets Ozark with a Southern Gothic twist. This placement is a sign that the concept is resonating not just as a standalone script, but as something with long-term potential.
I’ve submitted WBBTP to a handful of other major competitions this year, and each one feels like rolling the dice—but more and more, the odds are tilting in my favor. Whether it places further in Script Pipeline or not, I’m proud of this script and the path it’s carving. It’s finding its people.
It’s been a long road getting this story to where it is now. From scribbled notes in the margins of a notebook to a fully realized pilot being recognized by respected industry gatekeepers—every draft, every round of feedback, every late night at the keyboard built to this. If nothing else, this placement is a marker that the work matters. That it’s connecting. That maybe I’m onto something.
To be clear: this is just the first round. Quarterfinalist means there’s still a ways to go. But it also means the story is landing. It’s competing. It’s alive.
So thank you—again—to Script Pipeline for the recognition. And to anyone reading this who’s been pushing their own boulder uphill: keep going. The industry’s slow, but when it moves, it moves fast. And the more you put in the work, the more undeniable it becomes.
Here’s to the next round. Let’s see how deep this thing goes.