Val and J.T. (John) met in grad school while attending the UC Riverside MFA program for Creative Writing/Writing for the Performing Arts. Val was focused on playwriting and screenwriting while J.T. was focused on screenwriting and memoir. Val also dabbled in memoir. Hey, troubled childhoods need to be exorcised, and therapy isn't always enough…
To be more precise, they met in the hallway of a building while waiting to take a class on memoir. Val was sitting on the floor in a hallway or maybe John was sitting, but for sure one of them sat down next to the other and Val remembers saying something snide to John who seemed to agree completely. That (Val clearly remembers) was the beginning.
It was only natural that they’d talk story during these formative years. So, one day when Val was about to graduate and John had already graduated, she reached out. “I have this idea for a horror-comedy chick flick about a grad student or a clerk who’s a girl, but also comes from a long line of cat people "just like in that movie." John, having no better ideas at the moment, said something insightful like, “hmmm.”
And that’s how they started. Hey, they’re both geeks of the highest caliber.
Wanting to do a web series, they tossed around tons of ideas, mostly about monsters, supernatural creatures and inanimate objects - complicated stories that needed three or five acts. Their eureka moment hit when Val said to J.T., “What kind of monster wouldn’t be neurotic? I mean, Monsters have problems too.”They laughed. Chills ran down their spines. They wrote their asses off, recruiting friends to help, all the while promising free lunches and fun!
John moved on to endeavors outside of monsters and show business, but Val and fellow Monster Shrink writer Rob Rinow have continued on. They wrote a bunch of TV pilot scripts and screenplays... and keep on writing. As of today, they've attached producers to three projects.. If you have questions about their work, reach out to [email protected]. In the meantime, you can watch all webisodes on the Monster Shrink YouTube Channel. Thank you for watching and having fun with us. The word love might even come into play somewhere in there.
NOTE: Our director and my dear friend Roger Christiansen passed away. Everyone loved working with him and we are so very sorry to have lost him! The world has lost a great friend and a gifted talent! His photo is the middle one, on the bottom, in black and white. I'm quite sure ghostly Roger is looking down on all of us with love and sly humor. Because he was also a theatre guy, if you look up and think of him, methinks he might even whisper the Willie S. quote, "Lord what fools these mortals be..."
Val Stulman
July 2025
To be more precise, they met in the hallway of a building while waiting to take a class on memoir. Val was sitting on the floor in a hallway or maybe John was sitting, but for sure one of them sat down next to the other and Val remembers saying something snide to John who seemed to agree completely. That (Val clearly remembers) was the beginning.
It was only natural that they’d talk story during these formative years. So, one day when Val was about to graduate and John had already graduated, she reached out. “I have this idea for a horror-comedy chick flick about a grad student or a clerk who’s a girl, but also comes from a long line of cat people "just like in that movie." John, having no better ideas at the moment, said something insightful like, “hmmm.”
And that’s how they started. Hey, they’re both geeks of the highest caliber.
Wanting to do a web series, they tossed around tons of ideas, mostly about monsters, supernatural creatures and inanimate objects - complicated stories that needed three or five acts. Their eureka moment hit when Val said to J.T., “What kind of monster wouldn’t be neurotic? I mean, Monsters have problems too.”They laughed. Chills ran down their spines. They wrote their asses off, recruiting friends to help, all the while promising free lunches and fun!
John moved on to endeavors outside of monsters and show business, but Val and fellow Monster Shrink writer Rob Rinow have continued on. They wrote a bunch of TV pilot scripts and screenplays... and keep on writing. As of today, they've attached producers to three projects.. If you have questions about their work, reach out to [email protected]. In the meantime, you can watch all webisodes on the Monster Shrink YouTube Channel. Thank you for watching and having fun with us. The word love might even come into play somewhere in there.
NOTE: Our director and my dear friend Roger Christiansen passed away. Everyone loved working with him and we are so very sorry to have lost him! The world has lost a great friend and a gifted talent! His photo is the middle one, on the bottom, in black and white. I'm quite sure ghostly Roger is looking down on all of us with love and sly humor. Because he was also a theatre guy, if you look up and think of him, methinks he might even whisper the Willie S. quote, "Lord what fools these mortals be..."
Val Stulman
July 2025
