Every Story Starts Somewhere
Mine began with music, movies, a clothes-dryer spaceship, and a lifelong belief in the power of imagination.
For me, it started in northern New Jersey—with neighborhood adventures, Saturday-afternoon movies, comic books, music, and a child’s stubborn belief that an ordinary room could become almost anything.
A clothes dryer could be a spaceship. A backyard could hide an undiscovered world. The kid nobody noticed might turn out to be the hero of the whole story.
I never completely outgrew that way of looking at things.
I’m glad I didn’t.
Bat-Syd, reporting for duty.
The Day I Discovered Star Trek
Let me be clear up front: I love Star Trek. Passionately. I always have.
I was too young to see the original series during its first run on NBC. I discovered it a few years later, when I was eleven and visiting my brother at college.
My family was staying in a hotel in Indiana, and I was bored out of my mind. This was 1972 B.C.—Before Cable—when a hotel television offered all of three channels if the weather was cooperative. Fortunately, Star Trek was playing on one of them.
The episode was “Arena,” although I had missed the first half. I was already fascinated by science fiction and fantasy, so the moment I saw a lizard-man fighting a man in a torn green shirt, I was glued to the screen. I also learned how to build a cannon using materials conveniently scattered around a deserted planet, although this knowledge has proved surprisingly useless in everyday life.
After that, everything changed.
I watched Star Trek every afternoon after school. I created a checklist of episodes and recorded how many times I had seen each one. I called it my “Trek-list,” because apparently I was developing both an imagination and a talent for questionable puns.
I built models of the Enterprise and a Klingon battle cruiser and suspended them from my bedroom ceiling. I read the books, attended conventions, collected the merchandise, and eagerly followed the arrival of every new movie and television series.
I’m proud to belong to the generation of fans who discovered Star Trek in syndication and helped turn a canceled television program into a worldwide phenomenon. More importantly, the series showed me that stories could deliver imagination and adventure while still asking meaningful questions about courage, prejudice, friendship, responsibility, and the future we might build together.
Those ideas stayed with me. Inevitably, they found their way into my own stories.
Eighth-grade graduation—big plans still ahead.
The Soundtrack of Growing Up
Music was every bit as important to me as science fiction.
The Beatles were—and remain—a particular passion. Their music became part of the soundtrack of my childhood, tied to particular places, people, and memories. That connection between music and memory eventually became an important part of The Space Case Chronicles, where songs and historical moments help mark the passage of Billy McBride’s life.
I also performed in a boys’ singing group, appearing throughout New York and New Jersey—including one especially memorable performance at the world-famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.
For a boy growing up in New Jersey, singing at the Waldorf Astoria felt like briefly stepping into another world. Years before I worked in movies or published a novel, I had already learned what it meant to stand before an audience and help create a moment they might remember.
Science fiction taught me to look toward the future. Music taught me how powerfully the past can remain with us.
Storytelling gave me a place to bring the two together.
From New Jersey to Hollywood
I eventually studied filmmaking at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Before long, an opportunity took me across the country to Los Angeles, where I began working in the film industry.
I spent much of my career as a makeup-effects artist, helping create characters and illusions for movies and television. It was demanding, unpredictable work, and it taught me lessons I still use as a novelist: details matter, imagination needs discipline, and even the most extraordinary illusion must contain enough truth for an audience to believe it.
Working behind the scenes also gave me a close look at the extraordinary number of people and skills required to bring a story to the screen. Every creature, character, set, costume, prop, performance, and camera movement had to contribute to the same imagined world.
I loved being part of that process.
But after spending years helping other filmmakers bring their ideas to life, I began thinking more seriously about stories of my own.
Applying character makeup during my years in the film industry.
The original 2004 Space Case screenplay, set in 1970 and featuring Billy Kramer—the character who later became Billy McBride in Apollo Dreams.
Learning to Write My Own Stories
I started writing speculative screenplays in my spare time. I had studied filmmaking, but I hadn’t been trained as a screenwriter, so I created my own education.
I read every screenwriting book I could get my hands on. I studied produced scripts, watched movies with an eye toward structure, and taught myself how scenes, dialogue, character, and story fit together.
Eventually, three of my screenplays were optioned. Unfortunately, none of them made it into production—which is not an unusual ending in Hollywood—but having professional producers believe in the work encouraged me to keep writing.
One of my early projects was a short screenplay called Space Case. It followed Billy Kramer, a nine-year-old boy who transformed a clothes dryer into a spaceship and escaped into imaginary adventures whenever the real world became too difficult.
The screenplay was never produced, but Billy refused to disappear.
Years later, I returned to Space Case and began rebuilding it as a novel. The story grew deeper. The characters became more complicated. Billy’s imaginary voyage became part of a larger adventure about childhood, friendship, bullying, courage, and a historic moment when the entire world looked toward the stars.
That short screenplay eventually became Apollo Dreams, the first volume of The Space Case Chronicles.
Billy grew older. His world expanded. One book became three, following him from childhood through adolescence and into young adulthood.
In a way, Apollo Dreams took the same journey I did: from New Jersey to Hollywood, from movies to books, and back to the imagination that started it all.
Why I Write for Young Readers
Growing up is awkward, funny, exhilarating, confusing, and occasionally terrifying—sometimes all before lunch.
I still remember my childhood vividly. I remember what it felt like to be a kid: how enormous the world seemed, how deeply small embarrassments could sting, and how a single act of friendship could change everything. I remember the uncertainty of trying to fit in while also trying to figure out who I was.
Those memories aren’t distant snapshots to me. They remain remarkably clear, and they help me approach young characters with honesty and respect.
Young people are constantly being told who they are, who they ought to become, and which dreams are supposedly realistic. My stories are for readers who are still working out the answers for themselves.
I write about friendship, courage, imagination, first love, family, loss, acceptance, and the moment a young person begins to recognize their own worth. Some of my characters travel across the country or explore distant worlds. Others confront mysteries much closer to home.
Whatever the setting, the real adventure is usually the same: discovering who you are and finding the courage to become that person.
I want young readers to feel entertained, understood, and a little less alone. I want them to laugh, worry about the characters, become caught up in the adventure, and perhaps recognize something of themselves along the way.
I also hope older readers remember something about the people they once were—and perhaps recognize that those people are still with them.
A Few Things About Syd
First Spaceship
A clothes dryer. It offered limited headroom but excellent imaginary propulsion.
First Great Fandom
Star Trek—complete with books, models, conventions, merchandise, and a meticulously maintained Trek-list.
Memorable Early Performance
Singing at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan as part of a boys’ singing group.
Former Profession
Hollywood makeup-effects artist, helping transform imagination into something an audience could see and believe.
Favorite Kind of Character
The underestimated kid who discovers more courage than anyone expected—including himself.
Recurring Interests
Movies, music, history, unlikely friendships, outsiders, dreamers, and the complicated business of growing up.
Storytelling Rule
Humor and heart belong in the same story.
The Adventure Continues
I’m still following Billy McBride’s journey as I work on City of Dreamers, the third volume of The Space Case Chronicles.
I’m also developing new mysteries and adventures, including a new series called Smart Alex, a science-fiction trilogy called Psi Wars, and the forthcoming novels The Boy in the Hole and March of the Elephants.
The settings and characters may change, but each story begins with the same question:
What happens when an ordinary young person is called upon to do something extraordinary?
If you’re new to my work, begin with Apollo Dreams.
Billy will show you around.