Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Courtney Martin.
Hi Chris Courtney, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The Los Angeles thing took a few attempts to stick. I’m originally from Philadelphia (Go, Birds!) and that’s where I fell in love with writing as a kid. I did the local citywide playwriting contests all through high school. It was what they call a “Laboratory and Demonstration Magnet School” but I’m not the only artistic alum. People like Kevin Bacon, Will Smith (as legend has it) and even Leslie Odom Jr. have gone there. We’ve got some alum doing great things on the world stage, especially creatively.
After graduating high school, I got to study Screenwriting & Playwriting at a school called Drexel. It basically shares a neighborhood with UPenn — which was the first choice for most of my classmates. Our school was something of a feeder for the Ivy League. But Drexel gave me a full-ride scholarship and I chose to use it to study my craft of writing. It was really the wiser choice because I got to meet Los Angeles through a university program called Drexel in Los Angeles. I spent the summer of 2012 staying Downtown at the Piero. I worked at a company on Beverly Drive called 1821 — which did MACHETE KILLS and some other projects, including a graphic novel with Stan Lee. It was one of his last projects. So, I was incredibly lucky in that way.
I had to come back to Philly to finish my degree and I did. I declared two minors (Art History and Film & Video) and was one class away from qualifying for my third minor, Africana Studies. But a scheduling conflict with work cut the credits short. I still think about that today… Truly, I’m one of those Film School Apologists because I never would have gotten a foot in the door being a poor Black kid from West Philly if I didn’t make those kinds of connections and get a leg up with structured experience. I simply wish that a serious education in any field was considered a basic human right. The connections I made were priceless.
One of these connections led to me co-creating a show for Sheryl Lee Ralph, Niecy Nash and their sons. I met Etienne Maurice at Drexel and we hit it off creatively after one of my professors passed my short screenplay to his production class. He chose to direct it and we spent several years collaborating, including on a short documentary called THE LAST LAUGH — which can be found on YouTube.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has been about as smooth as a sidewalk in Leimert Park. (I say this as someone who is still recovering from a bum ankle that was re-injured TWICE in that neighborhood. Once, because of a pavement break. Then again later, after I was attacked by a random man in front of the McDonald’s off 43rd and Crenshaw.)
I worked my butt off to have a shot at being ANYTHING that looked something like free. Got up at the buttcrack of dawn take public transit to a school that was never any closer than 40 city blocks from my house. Had a job since the first week of college and worked the maximum amount of work-study hours. Then, when those funds ran out, I found another position at my university which turned into my first “Grown-Up Job.” Which I had to leave after a year and a half if I was ever going to make the leap to Los Angeles, permanently. It took multiple attempts to get a foothold in the city.
The first time I was out there on my own, after the college program, I took a multi-day Greyhound trip and ended up staying in West Covina. Which is very much not Los Angeles. I didn’t have a driver’s license, and definitely not for lack of trying. I still don’t drive. I’ve come to realize it’s a neurodivergence thing and that’s the only way I got to let it go. The only way to put the issue to bed without feeling like I failed somewhere.
After my first few months in the West Covina studio, I linked up with a former classmate whose girlfriend was leaving the city because she was out there on the same summer program I mentioned. They had a two-bedroom downtown, like walking distance from the Staples Center. And I thought it was a golden sublet opportunity. That’s actually how I met my good friend Justice Singleton because he was looking for a spot at the time and a mutual friend connected us about the studio I was leaving.
So, the sublet thing is fine and dandy for a few months until I let another friend from college crash for a few days. This person is Black, like myself. The new roommate is not. This is important. Because the landlord tells this new roommate that they have been getting reports of “two Black people in the unit” — which is probably even more racist than it sounded secondhand. There was some bullcrap about a gate being broken by my guest, which led me to find that the landlord didn’t even know that I was subleasing. The roommate and his girlfriend had assured me there was no formal paperwork. And it turned out they didn’t want to risk me being denied for my credit. So, within 48 hours, I had to leave. And because I had no backup, I had to leave the city altogether. I ended up staying with my dad in Fayetteville, North Carolina — which is where I’m riding out the pandemic, now. It took me over a year to get back to Los Angeles. And it was because I had to re-raise the money. Thankfully, I wrote PALE HORSE and it earned me enough in contest winnings for me to head back to town at the top of 2018. A little over five years ago now.
I had stronger contacts this time, but that didn’t make it easier. I was heading into an AirBnB hostel from a company called Artist Housing and the room looked nothing like what was on the site. I didn’t even feel comfortable sitting on the bed when I got there. It was, like, beyond filthy. I’m pretty sure the guy running this scam is a screenwriter, too — because I’ve seen his name in some credits. So, I end up staying in a literal roach motel on Central Ave for a week. And AirBnB finagles themselves out of giving me a full refund, so I am losing money to get into another hostel in San Gabriel. And there’s a lot going on there that makes me feel uncomfortable as a Black person.
It’s very important to set the record straight for people from my background who might have been fooled into thinking this part of the country is an equality utopia. I’ve experienced worse racism and discrimination in Los Angeles than I have in the South. A lady once reneged on my opportunity to put down a deposit after she went to my Facebook and saw that I was Black. She asked me if I was “okay living with an Asian person.” And, of course I was. Turns out, it was one of those reverse psychology questions.
We also have to be completely honest about the employment abuses out here. Because I’ve worked for a popular Democratic political pundit/influencer’s social media startup and was absolutely disrespected as the only Black employee. I heard things about how the women were treated there, period, too. And as someone assigned female at birth, I absolutely peeped it for myself. This man blamed me for things I didn’t do, barely apologized when I provided screenshot proof that he was wrong, and then cursed at me when I told him I felt discriminated against.
I worked at a company called SDI Media, too, down by the Howard Hughes center. They do dubbing and subtitling. I was going through very weird back issues at the time, that made it hard for me to walk. Nevermind that I had to commute on public transit and they knew this. The supervisor took it upon herself to grill me for almost three hours when I happened to mention that I’m a socialist. We started the conversation sitting down. Then I tried to inch toward the door. And I spent about an hour and a half trying to make my exit. I found myself dismissed at the end of my three-month “audition” period, despite what seemed like a pretty good performance trial. They canned me a few days before Christmas and I was crushed.
Wage theft is more blatant here than anywhere else I’ve worked. And my home state was Red until this past presidential election. People in the Entertainment Industry specifically do whatever the hell they want, and the CA bar — which I learned is battling lawsuits and audits left and right — routinely lets money and power have the final say when rights are violated.
I was also (TW) sexually assaulted at Cedars-Sinai at the top of 2021. By a staff member. After talking to three lawyers in the past few months, I came to learn that there is a California statute of limitations under something called MICRA that limits the amount of time to hold a medical facility responsible to one year. ONE YEAR to pursue accountability if a hospital lets their staff abuse/assault you. Knowing what we know about how long it takes to make a sexual assault disclosure to any sort of authority, this is clearly intentionally prohibitive. And Cedars is an institution that has an easily-researchable history of sexual assaults and abuses committed by their staff. They say it’s to keep insurance rates from rising, but it is absolutely there to allow these powerful entities to escape liability for what they know is happening on their watch.
But I’m here to stay. I’m taking a beat out of town, but I am going bicoastal. Because I will make sense of the beast that belies the beauty of second home, Los Angeles if it’s the last thing I do. This town has everything to offer. And that’s why gates are kept so barbarically. Let’s just say I have more in common with the folks in the tent villages than the people who have undervalued my work.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a poet, author, screenwriter and producer. My top genres are what I call the “Capital-G Genres” — Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy. Everything I do has a little humor in it, though. I’m not boxed in at all. As someone who has followed Jordan Peele’s career since MAD TV, I know that you never let anyone pigeonhole you.
I’ve done everything from podcasts (writing and co-hosting) to writing feature films and TV pilots. My original spec projects have been announced in the past couple of years with some big-name talent attached. I’m most proud of my Horror-Comedy feature project ‘CHARCUTERIE’, which I am producing as well. There have been some ups and downs but we have some incredibly exciting attachments that I am looking forward to sharing as soon as possible.
I am also rising as an educator. I’ve done some virtual speaking engagements with different writing groups. I did a couple of seasons as a Course Advisor for Sundance Co//lab under the sensational Deborah Goodwin — who is such an effective instructor. I really look up to her teaching style. I also blog for ScreenCraft, Tracking Board Launchpad and WeScreenplay. As someone who was one of the earliest readers for WeScreenplay-turned-Coverfly, I have always taken the opportunity to encourage and inspire through the notes process more than try and dictate somebody else’s art. I really want creators to find their own voices and produce work that frees them. If you work on art that fulfills something in yourself, you absolutely increase the chances of it doing the same thing for an audience. That is what has been my signature. I had an SVP at Sony tell me he couldn’t stop thinking about PALE HORSE nine months after he read it. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that putting your heart and soul in your work is the road to heartbreak.
Since I’ve come into a post-kundalini heart expansion, I’ve gotten back in touch with gifts that were given to me as child. Music, poetry — these are things I haven’t given serious thought to pursuing since I put everything into becoming a screenwriter. But in the past few years, they have found their way back to me.
I have a well-reviewed, critically-loved debut poetry/prose chapbook collection out right now with Alien Buddha Press. This work directly comes out of the pain I’ve experienced trying to find my respect as an entertainment professional. It’s so funny because I was lamenting something really awful that happened to me on social media. And a friend of mine, who is a bit older, took me aside and warned me that folks in this industry find the emotional side of their peers to be off-putting. She suggested I vent by writing poetry on Tumblr. And because I hadn’t written poetry since I was a teenager, I kind of shrugged it off. Not even half a year later, I released this collection and one of the poems is nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the publisher the following Fall.
“Chris Courtney Martin’s T’HE BOOK OF I.P. (Idle Poems)’ is a hybrid poetry and essay chapbook collection that is ‘ironic in concept, sincere in content’ as it deconstructs prescribed best practices for getting ideas greenlit as a screenwriter and what it means to possess a producible and worthy story. The chapbook is 65 pages long, containing 30 poems and two memoir-style essays.”
I’ve also just turned in my second manuscript to Alien Buddha Press. It’s a full-length hybrid collection called ‘SLAM POEMS FOR MY BATHROOM MIRROR…and other selected works…’ That’ll be coming out this year. Really excited about that one and really getting some of this class abuse anger off my chest.
The post-kundalini stuff, as scary as that process has been, also opened up some wonderful opportunities for me as somebody who is psychically open. I write and speak about those metaphysical experiences at length. Right now, I’m in the early stages of working on a documentary with a Ph.D. from Australia who specializes in the area of Spiritual Emergency. She has extensively published research in this area. I’ve also had a surprisingly gainful experience as an oracle card reader. I’ve done so many readings since the pandemic. I was hired to do oracle card readings at the engagement party of Scott Derrickson and Maggie Levin in WeHo a couple of years ago. I connected with some incredible people that night and had my gifts validated in ways that nobody can ever take away from me. I’m so glad that the industry is getting to know me as a healing force.
How do you think about happiness?
The thing that makes me happiest is fantasizing about changing the world by doing the things that I love. I have had a rough, rough go. There was a time when I was living off of whatever I could find in the community pantry alongside Hot and Cool Cafe. And when I looked at some of the names I had in my phone contacts, some of the people that I knew, it just bewildered me. But I found happiness in plugging in with the folks in the neighborhood. Especially some of the people who live in the park. I found myself leaving little gifts of jewelry that I had or books that people weren’t using. I even signed some comics that I was given in a meeting with DC Entertainment from their personal vault. I signed them:
“Love,
Thy Neighbor”
And I put them in the free library box. I told myself that when I was financially able to, I’d put out a call for the holders of these books and hook them up with like $10k each or something. Some real Willy Wonka stuff without the dark sidedness. That’s the kind of stuff that keeps me going. I call it Good Fairy-ing.
Pricing:
- THE BOOK OF I.P. (Idle Poems) – $10.44 + S&H on Amazon
- Oracle Card Sessions – $50 for 30 minutes, $100 for 60 minutes, Special Pricing for Special Spreads Available Upon Request
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriscourtneymartin/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscourtneymartin/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaRealChrisCo
- Other: amazon.com/dp/B0B148JKLM
Image Credits
Portrait Credit – Petra Shrieves All Other Images – Chris Courtney Martin
