I Mine my own pain for your amusements
I'm Ryan Thomas Riddle, an award-winning writer for my work as a mild-mannered reporter for a great Bay Area newspaper, The Daily Post. Nowadays, I’m a screenwriter, working on a variety of TV/Film and comics projects.
An Austin Film Festival 2023 Finalist Screenwriter and twice featured on The Stunt List.
Hannibal Tabu and I are developing several works for audio, TV, and Film. I co-created and co-wrote the SF-Horror audio drama We Don’t Belong Here (produced by Avaaz Media). I also wrote for Christian Elder’s Hell, California.
As a proud Fil-Am queer, my work heavily features Filipinx and queer characters in a variety of genre stories. My brand is Martians and mayhem. My goal as a writer is to educate, entertain, and enlighten. And, hopefully, delight you along the way.
I still use my journalism skills in my work with Fact Trek, which is on a mission to bust the myths around the production of the original Star Trek series. And I’m one-half of the sci-fi pop culture podcast Ship Full of Jerks with my friend Mark Farinas.
the stunt list
Star trek: oath (2024)
STAR TREK: OATH, written after a social media challenge by Gates McFadden, is now on www.theofficialstuntlist.com.
After mysteriously being discharged from Starfleet, Dr. Beverly Crusher leads a team of rebellious doctors to help worlds the Federation’s forgotten.
In 2023, after watching the premier of STAR TREK: PICARD season 3, I sent a tweet saying I’d love to write a show about Beverly Crusher as a frontier doctor without Starfleet.
Surprisingly, Gates McFadden responded! She told me to write it then send the script.
STAR TREK: OATH is the result. I spent months getting the script shipshape and ready to show.
Inspired by a show STAR TREK creator Gene Roddenberry previously wrote for, HAVE GUN — WILL TRAVEL, I envisioned a wild, untamed frontier beyond the Horsehead Nebula. A place where the Federation abandoned several worlds, leaving them to fend for themselves.
Now, Beverly finds herself torn between two oaths — the one she took as a doctor and the one she took as a Starfleet officer. Even though she was mysteriously discharged from the service. But that’s because she’s… oh, that would be telling.
DAILY PLANET: A LOIS LANE STORY (2023)
DAILY PLANET: A LOIS LANE STORY — the Superman mythos as seen through the reporting of Lois Lane.
After the mysterious Superman saves a runaway commuter train, Daily Planet Reporter Lois Lane clashes with her editor over whether Superman should be the story at all and unknowingly contends with a professional rival who's after the same story. SUPERMAN AND LOIS meets NEWSROOM.
While working as a mild-mannered Bay Area reporter, I was continually frustrated with Aaron Sorkin’s THE NEWSROOM and how it bungled actual news reporting. A criticism I had also with Superman writers. My friend Andrew Tan suggested I write a more journalism-centric Superman show. Less super heroics, more practical reporting.
DAILY PLANET is a Superman show, not about Superman. Instead, it’s about the reporters covering him.
My experience as an award-winning journalist makes this stunt pilot more authentic than any other show about journalists. Characters jot hurried notes. Dig through court and government documents. Conduct interviews over the phone and in person. Always with a notepad and pen in hand.
Everything is seen through the eyes of Lois Lane. After all, this is her story.
ORIGINALS for the screen
HARDBOILED QUEER “Orpheus”
Struggling with a meth addiction, a gay jazz musician returns home seeking absolution from his past sins, and gets mixed up in murder, drugs, and perverse sexual desires endangering his sobriety. This is a one-hour pilot for a proposed TV anthology queer crime series, HARDBOILED QUEER.
This story originally appeared as part of the HELL, CALIFORNIA CRIME ANTHOLOGY PODCAST.
Art by Mark Farinas
TRANSISTOR PUNK
“The Starless Midnight”
During an interstellar war, a young space officer must decide between duty and mutiny to save her ship, risking her career and position. A pilot for a one-hour retro science fiction series, TRANSISTOR PUNK, written in collaboration with writer/artist Mark Farinas.
False Flag: Daddy LESSONS
Adventure satire False Flag combines the sprawling continuity of G.I. Joe with the business and complexity of professional wrestling: real people getting hurt is just part of the show.
Based on FALSE FLAG created and written by Hannibal Tabu, in conjunction with Demar Douglas, Quinn McGowan, Ryan Thomas Riddle and Damion Gonzales.
Audio adaptation written by Hannibal Tabu and Ryan Thomas Riddle, based on the short story “Daddy Lessons.”
Starring Damion Poitier as Black Fury, Heidi Cox as Wrecking Ball, and D.W. McCann as Jack Attack. Guest Starring CJ Johnson as Operator.
FALSE FLAG: DADDY LESSONS is part of the It’s Komplicated: Da Workz releases on YouTube with exclusive releases on Hannibal Tabu’s Substack. Be sure to subscribe to both.
Art by Eesha Chavan
Three friends are trapped in a mysterious forrest with no way out. A life-sucking creature hunts them down. But what does it really want with them? Nothing is what it seems in this science-fiction horror. Four of six planned episodes produced.
An Avaaz Media production.
Created by Tamara Syed, Sim Dhugga, and Ryan Thomas Riddle
From a concept by Tamara Syed and Sim Dhugga
Producer: Tamara Syed
Director: Sim Dhugga
Executive Producer: Ryan Thomas Riddle
Starring: Alexandria Hood, Tamara Syed, Rene Toledo, and Kavi Raz (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Episode 1 | “Three Characters Trapped in a Forest”
Written by Tamara Syed & Sim Dhugga and Ryan Thomas Riddle
Episode 2 | “Knock at the Door”
Written by Sim Dhugga and Ryan Thomas Riddle
Episode 3 | “The Night of the Smokeless Fire”
Written by Tamara Syed
Episode 4 | “The Road to Hell”
Written by Ryan Thomas Riddle
Hell, California - Ep. 2 “Orpheus” (Staff Writer)
Art by Christian Elder
“It was so good, but I felt I needed a shower after… it was a mind fuck like OLDBOY.” — Vinny Alvendia, Eggdrop Ramen Studios
Omar Rodrigues was a hot local jazz musician, but drugs screwed his chances at stardom. He’s returned to Hell to play a one-night performance — his last chance at a comeback. But he can’t stop dwelling on his former lover Erik… or his criminal past. Will he risk his sobriety and seek Erik out?
(An audio dramatization of a one-hour teleplay for a proposed TV anthology series.)
Written by Ryan Thomas Riddle
Starring: Giovanni Tejada, Richard Tanner (NBC’s This is Us and Star Trek: Enterprise), Antonio Salinas, Georgina Okon (Bob Hearts Abishola), Jason Turnage, Adam Sartain, Joshua Russell and Ed Gonzalez.
About Hell, California
Hell, California is a hardboiled crime fiction podcast anthology series. It takes place in a mysterious, mythical California border town called Hell. Every episode is an original standalone story in the noir genre. They are morality tales about greed, lust and murder. Created by Christian Elder.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
adventures in comics
A ‘Star trek’ fan webcomic.
“IDW, take note: if any fan-made comic has ever deserved print publication, it would be this one.”
— Rich Handley, editor of the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection
A TNG-era story featuring an all-new crew, written in collaboration with Star Trek Webcomic writer-artist Mark Farinas. Click the image to read the entire webcomic serial. Background image: Mark Farinas.
A late TOS-era story on what happens to redshirts after the landing party, written in collaboration once again with writer-artist Mark Farinas. Click the image to read the currently ongoing webcomic serial.
Things I wrote
A small sampling.
Wild hearts run outta time
Fiction Short
You ever listened to Roy Orbison? That voice. That fucking voice. Cuts deep into you, slicing you bit by bit. Until you’re just chunks of meaty, exposed flesh on the ground. All that remains is the pain you had before you started listening to one of his songs.
Been listening to him a lot lately.
Star Trek saved my life, LITERALLY
For the official Star Trek Website
I shouldn’t be here. I don’t mean I should be somewhere else. Some other space, some other time.
I mean, to be completely frank, that I should be dead.
I didn’t try to go out in a blaze of glory, saving the galaxy. I tried to ...
The Never-Ending Battle for truth, Justice and Superman's copyright
The battle rampaged through the streets of Metropolis, in the skies above and even into the skyscrapers. Bread crumbs of ash, concrete and steel strewn in its wake. Two titans duked it out, each blow causing a sonic boom. Fists slammed into flesh, tearing ligaments, snapping tendons and splintering bones. An invincible man whose skin couldn’t be penetrated bled. His face was bruised, battered. His opponent, Doomsday, cocked his arm back once again and with a force unfathomable, incalculable by our understanding of physics ...
The 448's War
The Green Room of the San Francisco Veterans Building has been taken over for the night by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a charity organization that mashes Catholic imagery and drag, perhaps San Francisco's most iconic gay group. But among the drag queens and leather daddies are military veterans in garrison caps and vests decorated with medals ...
JOBS DEMANDED RETURN OF IPHONE
Winner Second Place San Francisco Peninsula Press Club — News Story 2010
Apple CEO Steve Jobs took matters into his own hands to retrieve a next-generation iPhone prototype, documents revealed. San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Clifford Cretan yesterday ordered unsealed a 10-page sworn statement with details ...
ACCOLADES
ALSO KNOWN AS THE SECTION WHERE I BRAG.
SAN FRANCISCO PENINSULA PRESS CLUB
Breaking News for 2010 – Third Place, The Daily Post, Explosion, inferno guts neighborhood, David DeBolt, Ryan Riddle
News Story for 2010 – Second Place, The Daily Post, Jobs demanded return of iPhone, Ryan Thomas Riddle, Jamie Morrow
News Story for 2011 — Third Place, The Daily Post, “Transit chief's pay raised in less than an obvious way,” Ryan Thomas Riddle.
Toastmasters International
Area B3, International Speech Contest — Second Place, Spring 2014
Screenwriting Accolades
Quarterfinalist, The Script Lab - TSL Free Screenplay Contest 2023
For TRANSISTOR PUNK - “The Starless Midnight”
Second Rounder, Launch Pad Pilot Competition 9th Annual
For MANILATOWN - “Big Trouble in Manilatown”
Quarterfinalist, ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship 2023
For HARDBOILED QUEER - “Orpheus”
Finalist, Austin Film Festival, Drama Spec Teleplay
For STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS — “Have Phaser — Will Travel!”
Making appearances
Some interviews I’ve done.
Maker’s Monday
Get This (Podcast)
ShoPowSho (Podcast)
TrekRanks (Podcast)
In Print
Star Trek Comics Weekly 112 - Star Trek comic expert Rich Handley interviews me and writer-illustrator Mark Farinas on Star Trek: The Webcomic.
“How Six Strangers Developed An Anthology Series During Covid-19” — No Film School features the Hell, California writer’s room.
“Designing the Next Generation Bridge” — Nick Ottens of Forgotten Trek mentions the Star Trek: Webcomic serial “Word of God”.
Bonus: An Actor of necessity
I’m an actor in a pinch for my friend Maurice Molyneaux’s short films. This is one of those rare acting appearances. After all, damnit, I’m a writer not an actor, Jim!
A tribute to STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME, filmed in San Francisco at the same locations as that movie. I cameo as Captain James T. Kirk.
AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL
2023 FINALIST SCRIPT
“HAVE PHASER - WILL TRAVEL!” was an Austin Film Festival 2023 Finalist screenplay.
After a senior officer is injured, Ensign Uhura must take charge of a landing party pinned down in a bar and earn their trust to survive a hostile alien standoff.
“The story meets and supersedes expectations for most aspects of story, such as realistic dialogue, compelling character arcs, and vivid sequences. It is a challenge to identify any particular area for improvement.”
Celia Rose Gooding signed the cover of my AFF 2023 Finalist STAR TREK : STRANGE NEW WORLDS spec, which now hangs next to my Nichelle Nichols signed Uhura picture in my Ready Room. Signed script cover courtesy of Justin Avery Smith.
After Captain Kirk, Uhura is my favorite STAR TREK character. When I heard Uhura was returning for STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS, I knew I had to write a spec script for the show around the character. I wanted this script to be her “Galileo Seven”—a story about her first command. But I also wanted to showcase her skills as a linguist.
“Have Phaser - Will Travel!” is my love letter to both the character of Uhura and the woman who initially brought her to life, Nichelle Nichols.
Nichelle is a personal hero of mine. Not just for Uhura, but also for her work as a NASA recruiter. A space queen who shaped the Final Frontier. In 2017, I got to tell Nichelle how much she meant to me. She grabbed my hand, thanked me, and wished me blessings for my life. A memory I shall always cherish.
But the story is also inspired by Celia Rose Gooding’s stellar performance as the younger, inexperienced Nyota Uhura. She’s the reason this script even exists.
Now, I’ve made no secret of my mission to staff on STAR TREK. This was my first try to prove I could write for a weekly Trek show. On a lark, I submitted it to the Austin Film Festival screenplay competition for 2023. I decided it’d be my last screenplay competition, as I was getting burned on all the money wasted on the various contests. I submitted it and promptly forgot I did.
Months passed. Then, I got a call from AFF saying I’d made it into the semi-finals. I was floored and thought that was as far as it would go. A few days later, my phone rang again. I was a finalist! This was the way to go out if this was my last screenplay contest.
At a convention, my friend Justin Avery Smith showed my script to Celia, who graciously signed the front cover. Justin reports she had some flattering words about my writing.
As J. Michael Straczynski says, “Never surrender dreams.” With this and OATH, I am one step closer to the dream of writing for STAR TREK.
