I Mine my own pain for your amusements
I'm Ryan Thomas Riddle. I am not Lord Voldemort. I'm an award-winning writer for my work as a mild-mannered reporter for a great Bay Area newspaper, The Daily Post. My work has also appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Fast Co Design, Comics Bulletin and 99U. Nowadays, I’m a screenwriter, working on a variety of projects for TV/Film and comics.
An Austin Film Festival 2023 Finalist Screenwriter and featured on The Stunt List.
Most recently, I co-created and co-wrote the SF-Horror audio drama We Don’t Belong Here (produced by Avaaz Media). I’m also working with a group of writers on a proposed crime noir TV anthology project, 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.
When I'm not pounding the keyboard, I'm an occasional starship commander and secretly suspect I may be a Time Lord. You can read all about my adventures through time and space on Twitter, @ryantriddle.
If you’re interested in my marketing and content strategy work, check out my consulting page.
stories for the screen
Screenwriting samples.
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.
DAILY PLANET
”Clark Kent Gets a job”
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 in this TV pilot stunt script.
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.
MANILATOWN
”Big trouble in little manila”
Written by Ryan Thomas Riddle and Gwen-Florelei Luib
A young Filipino man's search for a mysterious woman leads to a clash with menacing mystical forces that threaten to destroy him and other Filipino residents at a San Francisco flophouse. A pilot for a one-hour limited series.
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.
