Today we’d like to introduce you to Harker Jones.
Hi Harker, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up at a lake outside Manchester, Michigan (pop. 1,710), a queer boy dreaming of being a movie star. But I’m not an actor, I’m a writer. I just always understood I was meant to be in Los Angeles. So once I graduated from Eastern Michigan University, I picked up and moved here and things started to fall into place fairly quickly. I was hired as managing editor of “Genre,” a gay men’s features magazine (a poor man’s “Out”) the summer I arrived, which led to a position as managing editor of “Out” (a rich man’s “Genre”), where I stayed for seven years, and then did two in gay porn. You can’t plot the twists life takes. No one would have anticipated me ending up in the gay porn industry, least of all me!
Then, one day, something sparked and I had an idea for a script. It didn’t occur to me that it could be a novel. It was a screenplay. So I studied with UCLA instructors Peter Douglas Russell and Cecilia Najar and learned the craft of screenwriting, refining that first script, and now have nine completed projects. Five of them are pretty solid and four need enough work that, well, they need work.
I also wrote a number of short scripts. One, a thriller titled “Cole & Colette,” won the Get It Made Short Screenplay Contest, the prize of which was to have it produced. They did a fantastic job and it got accepted into more than 40 film festivals worldwide, winning several awards. I sold another short, a science fiction, “Twilight Zone”–like story called “One-Hit Wonder,” that won Best Sci-Fi Short from LA Indies, LA Independent, Toronto Indie Shorts, and the New York Science Fiction Film Festival, among other awards.
I’m focused now on pitching my features and marketing my love-story novel, “Until September.”
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?
If the road was smooth, it wouldn’t be any fun, right? That’s why roller coasters are so popular! Breaking through in Hollywood is very much like that, up and down, left and right, sometimes upside-down, and also, oftentimes, one step forward, six steps back. And then there are the times you’re not even taking that one step forward. Like, despite getting stellar feedback on my strongest scripts and being told repeatedly, “You’re great! Your scripts are great! Just keep doing what you’re doing!” no one has signed me yet, no one has optioned a feature. (Yet.) It’s a very strange place to be. A nether world. In between novice and professional, encouraged by those who know but still left in limbo.
So I try to find balance by going out and living life: Date Night with my partner; time with our demon-cat, Holly; industry events; drinks with friends; volunteering for Project Angel Food. I’m a member of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and write theater reviews for Broadway World, so I see a lot of live shows, and that gets me out of my head. Getting out of LA also helps. Not because LA is so awful — it’s my favorite city in the world — but just getting away, even just to Palm Springs or Big Bear, can help clear your mind, give you a restart. As a writer, you have to live life in order to write about it!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I specialize in comedy and horror (never the twain shall meet) in my screenplays. I find them to be very similar, with a set-up followed by a payoff that is either a joke or a scare. It’s working the same muscle with a different exercise. My teen thriller, “Never Have I Ever,” is a ’90s throwback to whodunit slashers like “Scream,” “Urban Legend” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” I based it on a novel I wrote at 17, the year after high school, still living at that lake in Michigan. Adapting it was interesting because the characters revealed things to me that they hadn’t in fiction form.
My queer psychological thriller, “The Alexandrite Ring,” is essentially a one-location project, which was a bit of a challenge, but it helped me get creative about the process, which I always love. Challenges, deadlines and writing prompts really get my juices going. “The Alexandrite Ring” is getting phenomenal feedback and I’m hoping it’s the project that will break me in. So far, no one has seen the twists coming!
I’m most proud of my novel, “Until September,” a love story. While enduring a bout of unrequited love (the only kind I had known at that point), I channeled those emotions into a book (as one does). I worked on refining it through the years and finally self-published it a couple of years back (I couldn’t be bothered to wait on managers and agents, who could take six months to get back to you — if they do at all — just to hear “no”). I’ve sold more than 1,500 copies in both physical and electronic form and have gotten largely positive feedback from readers, including fan letters, something I never imagined getting! I mean, when’s the last time you were so moved by a book you sat down and sent an email to the author? I’ve since adapted it into a limited drama series and am pitching that as well. While all my children are beloved, there’s a special place in my heart for “Until September.”
In addition to the feature scripts, I’ve written three children’s books. The first, “The Bird Who Was Afraid to Fly,” has been illustrated and is in the pipeline to be published, ideally by autumn.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
To coalesce in my mind what I need to continue moving forward, I created an acronym called FACT: Focus. Ambition. Confidence. Tenacity. All are critical to achieving success. Additionally, you need talent, and faith, and vision, but beyond all that, you must be unflappable. You have to have the ability to lick your wounds, then dust yourself off and try again (to quote the Aaliyah song). There are days I’m absolutely devastated by rejections or notes, but you have to be able to shake that off, otherwise you’ll never get anywhere. And isn’t it better to at least try versus just running down the clock on your life?
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/harker_j/
- Facebook: facebook.com/harkerjuice
- Twitter: twitter.com/HarkerJones
Image Credits
Christopher Campbell (this is only for the Alexandrite Ring poster image that I then doctored myself)
