The Apple Growers

Lauren, the eldest daughter of a family trying to make a go of raising apples on a newly terraformed moon that, before their arrival, was only an interplanetary way station, is raped and impregnated by the captain of a ship that passes through. She runs for Sheriff of the hardscrabble farming town, in anticipation of his return in two years time.

Without a Flame

A thousand years from now, during a post-apocalyptic renaissance, a group of scientists gropes its way towards an understanding of our culture by bringing our email systems back online. For them, an email conversation between the three people involved in a love triangle, in Los Angeles, one year before the city fell, becomes the key to two concepts they've lost: anger and love.

The Last Joyride

With oil at $500/barrel, and highways closed to all but the robotic cars of the wealthy, Rainey and Jack Milk, newly wed in Vegas, steal a '72 Coupe de Ville and point it towards NYC, stealing gas as they go.

Harming Adrian Mint

Adrian Mint cannot remember anything from one morning to the next, which his schoolmates take advantage of by torturing him at night, until he steals the journal of his crush, Samantha Birenbaum and, inspired by its confidences, starts to keep one himself.

Hotpants

Checkout girl Jenna McIntyre has one ambition: to win the Ms. Atlanta Hotpants Invitational; but she's up against some stiff competition, especially international supermodel Lupe Delacroix, who swore on her talk show to make the Hotpants Cup her own; and she's got to get invited first.

The Shroom

When Mega-Mart breaks virgin ground in a small New York town, the spores of an ancient fungus, carried home in the lungs of a construction worker, mushroom from his mouth overnight, and spread, feeding on and killing the residents as it goes.

Eden

A photojournalist, a medic, and a chaplain embedded with a Marine unit in Afghanistan flee an ambush with the survivors of their patrol into a mysterious valley, teeming with edible plants. As the Marines prepare to fight their way out, the chaplain is troubled by visions of God; the photographer notices that the plants mutate at an astonishing rate; and the medic discovers that she's pregnant, though she can't think how.

Time Aloft

Theo Hauser wakes up one morning to find that a small family -- the tallest is 1" high -- intends to build a house on his head. The courts affirm the validity of their deed, and they proceed with construction, while Theo tries to get on with his life as an air-traffic controller.

ask a ninja

Courtesy Kung Fu Monkey:

Where Dreams End

Twelve year old Justin Fleischer falls into a coma when a side of beef falls on his head in his father's butcher shop. Ten years later, the day his father dies, Justin wakes up, faced with taking over the family business that has been mortgaged out to pay for his long term care.

Mbui & Jane

Jane, 63, nurse, unwed, recently retired, flies with a friend to Kenya, for some fun on the beach. There, she meets Mbui, 29, mostly unemployed, turning to escorting women like Jane for some ready cash. What neither expects from the transaction is that, across the divides of race, class, age, continents, xenophobia, power, and suspicion, they find in each other the ones in whom their hearts can rest easy.

The Last Wilderness

An abandoned infant is adopted and raised by a flock of wild turkeys in Inwood Hill Park, the last wilderness in... Manhattan. Discovered by science at age 12, she survives research and enculturation to emerge as a figure of the traditional American values embodied in the birds who raised her: she won't shut up, she won't be pushed around, and she sticks together with her kind.

Thanks for Nothing

A wealthy Madison Avenue dame, a vegan bicycle messenger, and a schizophrenic homeless man get locked in Fairway overnight on Thanksgiving.

Tom Behind Bars

Representative Tom Teakens -- "When I see crime, I swat it out" -- sends himself to prison for a week to prove how humane and useful the county corrections system is. It's all hilarity, weight-lifting, and remedial reading until Rep Tom "swats out" the corrections officer who beats another prisoner, and finds himself behind bars for real.

Rise Up

Gerry Chandler, of Bloomfield, Illinois, wins a bake-off sponsored by a major biscuit company, only to see his winning recipe become a means for the company to dispose of undesirable byproducts. Turning on the corporate god that raised him up, this Prometheus with a spatula vows to use his power as spokesmodel to return baking to the people.

Go East Fast

NYC is full of murderous robots. A hot dog vendor, a Java programmer, and a model struggle to escape.

Just in case you were curious...

... both of you. Yes, that includes me.







It's not that you can't make this stuff up; it's that you can't make it up, and get paid for it.

Bacikstok

When an Israeli scientist invents a device that will allow him to travel backwards in time, he uses it to return to the village in Poland where his parents were murdered before his young eyes, with what he hopes is enough gold to persuade the partisan family who sheltered him to hide them, too.

The Sands of Fort McMurray

When a village elder dies, drunkenly prophesying the end of time, several of the younger generation are afflicted with dreams of the lake awash in dead fish. Finding each other, theyu attempt to stop the expansion of tar-sand refining, 100 miles upstream, on environmental grounds -- despite being nearly all employed in the same operation.

The Road to St. Ives

At 64 years of age, Roger Lett, retired, widower, father of four, fit and sharp, devotes his energies to fulfilling a dream he's long deferred: play shortstop for the St. Ives Kitts, his local minor-league baseball team.

Cosmic Ray

When Ray Chaffee was 13 and going in for his first kiss, a cosmic ray hit him, knocking him flat, igniting in him a lifetime's passion for particle physics, and a reflexive terror of romance. Now, on the eve of his study of an unprecedented storm of the high-energy particles, his colleague, fellow physicist Belinda Nutt, wants a piece of his action -- but penetrating Ray's atmosphere is a trial of intergalactic proportions.

Cooking from Memory

Antonio Villahermosa receives word that his mother has died. Pursued by INS, and lacking legal ID, money, or means of transportation, he works his way slowly back to the Mexican village of his birth by cooking his mother's recipes for the people who host him along the way, keeping her memory alive meal by meal.

New Wheels

Led by a rogue designer and backed by an unconventional financier, a group of laid-off auto workers bands together to design and build a prototype of a better car -- more comfortable, more fuel-efficient, more stylish, and more reliable -- that their employers would never have made, and have it ready in time for the Detroit Auto Show; but corporate resistance, personality clashes, and the realities of building a complicated product stand in the way of getting their message to the people.

Market Rate

Shane Gombrowski might have the cheapest full-sized apartment left in Brooklyn, and his whole life revolves around it; but when his 90-year-old landlady passes away, he stands to lose everything. Now, her son and heir is on his way back from the old country to visit, and it's up to Shane to give her the appearance of life -- and keep himself off the street.

Cafe Scioppero

Ten Guild writers, stymied by the WGA strike, now in its sixteenth week, face a terrible choice: find other work, or starve. Starvation is off the table, so they get together with some striking Teamsters, two grips, and a some sympathetic Craft Service workers, pool their cash, max their plastic, and open a restaurant. So much hilarity ensues, that a prominent TV producer wants to make Cafe Scioppero a (non-Union) reality show.

The Balance of Kindness

Sasha Delaney wakes up one morning sure in the knowledge that there is a balance of kindness in the world, and that it is her job to help maintain it. Unfortunately, she's a 14-year-old suburban vampire.

Suicide Jack

Stand-up comedian Jack Boggs is in his third year hosting the Thursday night comedy jam. He's also on his thirty-second suicide attempt, a fact attested to by his friend Manny and the other EMTs presenting him with a Frequent Diers Club card. Now Jack's about to get his big break -- a shot at guest-hosting a cable show -- if he can find the material, and if he can stay alive.

Police Escort

Not only is rookie detective Jimmy McGinn in way over his head posing as a male escort to help crack a diamond-smuggling ring run by a ruthless New York society dame, a regular customer at the service where he embeds; he's also head over heels for the dragon lady's daughter.

From Washington, I'm Heather Mulvaney

Heather Mulvaney, 13, star reporter for her hometown newspaper, wins a contest to interview the President in the Oval Office. When she asks him what "disingenuous" means, and he can't answer, she gets picked up as a correspondent by an alternative news outlet and lands smack in the middle of a developing crisis -- one created by the failure of elected officials to say what they mean.

The Fabricator

An Iraqi man fabricates intelligence against a wanted terrorist to secure asylum for his threatened family; but the botched follow-up leaves his neighbors dead in their home. Now, the US Army and the Iraqi police want answers, while his neighbors' relatives and the terrorist himself want him dead.

Dr. Feldman, FBI

A malfunctioning hearing aid enables a dentist to overhear a terrorist plot at Newark Airport, where he is drawn into a web of intrigue, enjoying the excitement more than he'd have thought -- until his batteries run out.

The Clean

Industry has so poisoned the environment that cancer is as widespread as the common cold, except in the gated preserves called The Clean, where none but the extreme rich can afford to live. When Sarah Hawthorne, a chute operator in a power plant, discovers that she's pregnant, she vows to bear her child there, at any cost.

Top Bidder

Having lost almost everything to her ebay addiction, Margaret Baskin auctions off intangibles to make ends meet -- things like blessings, and, later, deliverance. When the top bidder for that turns out to be an Army chaplain in Iraq, Margaret has to come up with a way to deliver the goods.

Therefore Choose Mike

Security technician Mike Banff -- good with radios, bad with people -- does his high-tech best to convince superstitious Christie Fingel that her dead mother is telling her to go out with him. Things comes to a head when Mike's buddy Nate, himself smitten with Christie, appears as the voice of Christie's late father, telling her to leave Mike immediately; Christie, still in rebellion, decides to bear Mike's children.

Rain Dance

A small town in Arkansas, facing a devastating drought without the possibility of state or federal aid, turns to its last surviving native shaman (a school bus driver who they forced into retirement) for a traditional remedy: a rain dance; but, as he tells them, if they want their wish granted, they'll have to do the same for him.

Field Trip to America

A group of impatient, high-powered New Yorkers, stranded in Idaho on a ski vacation when their chartered helicopter breaks down, are so surprised that people are nice to them that they decide to quit the city and stay. They're hard put to prove their worth when, to their equal surprise, people expect them to be nice back.

Beating Aimee Bundt

Emily Jabotinsky can't compete with Aimee Bundt on grades, athletics, looks, or popularity; but she can compete on sheer competitiveness, and she might be able to beat her at chess. Emily dedicates herself to unseating Aimee at the head of the Boromir Junior High Girls' Chess Team, and in the All-County championships to come.

Minor Year

1991. A young man from a decent family dives into the half-light of pre-Internet New York City. He wants to be an artist. Befriended by an HIV-stricken pianist old enough to be his father, he becomes the musician's lover, then helper, and soon survivor and heir.

Feeding Eddy

On a class trip to the Port of Long Beach, geeky Eddie Robinson picks up a mysterious disease that makes him so hungry, he can eat his body weight in pizza, in a day, without gaining an ounce. Spread by kissing, the affliction makes Eddy a must-date commodity (but only up to first base); while, soon, teen carriers threaten to devour the entire town -- residents and all.

The Swarm

Climate change afflicts NYC with a plague of mosquitoes. When the Mayor orders wholesale spraying, only the smart survive. Noticed only by an expert on machine learning, they form a singular intelligence that may be the city's ruin, but may also be something new under the sun.

Opening Up

Guitarist Forbes Reiner hasn't spoken a word in his 33 years -- and won't, either, until Melissa Cone walks into his hotel lobby gig and into his life, wanting only one thing: to sing with Forbes.

The Man Without Pride

Aliens take over a New Jersey town, by being so critical that no one's self esteem can survive. The only man who can stop them is someone who never had any to begin with, and learned to get along: Regis, the man without pride.

Phoning It In

Gary Blender hasn't been to the office in two years. Now he's up for promotion. The new boss who likes his work is the guy Gary hit last year at the hockey rink, with a Zamboni.

samurabbi

Ikiru Berkowitz has enough trouble reconciling his split Jewish-Japanese heritage, but when an assassin crashes his bar mitzvah, he'll need all the strength of both just to stay alive.

clean sweep

Bobbi Ann Lushinski's plan to escape the mean streets by joining a convent is foiled when she falls in love with the janitor.

Breakfast of Geniuses

Elliot Goldspice, 13, disappointed with his breakfast options and struggling in school, concocts Goldbots, a cereal that measurably improves the standardized test scores of those who eat it. The discovery brings him lucrative celebrity, an idyll soon fractured by questions of SAT doping and cereal addiction. Elliot replies to the accusations with anger, causing a rift with the most important person in his life: his mother, the school principal.

Here Ghost Nothing

We all have skeletons in our closets, but when Sarah and Barry move into a new place together, the ghosts that haunted their old apartments come along, too. When the ectoplasmic pair square off, the living lovers must find a way to make peace between them before the supernatural snarkfest ruins their relationship.

Chasing Babi

Joleen, an anthropologist, struggles with the morality of her new boyfriend's inevitable murder of her two children, even as she is frustrated in her attempts to obtain classified information on the social structures of the now-extinct African baboon.

Love and Theft

When Myrtle goes out for panty hose, it isn't to look good at her and Harry's grandson's wedding -- it's for them to pull over their heads when they rob a bank on the way to the rehearsal dinner. But with thirteen grandkids by five do-gooder children, how else can two retirees afford to pick up the tab?

Core Router

(web series) The Internet's Core Routers are not, as we previously thought, a rack of terrifyingly expensive, gunmetal-gray Cisco boxes in a hardened, multiply-redundant facility, but a klatch of old-fashioned telephone switchboard operators and overweight computer nerds in an industrial park outside Boise. This virtual clip show consists of real and invented Web footage and political scandals, intercut with the operators' and sysops' ironic commentary on the state of the 'net.

Belonging

Andrew, 30, is developmentally disabled, to the lasting frustration of his high-powered family. Though instructed to the last detail how to behave at his brother's wedding, out of their hopes of averting a behavioral breakdown, it's the unexpected acceptance he finds in the family of his brother's new bride that changes his world forever.

The Trans-Pacific Railroad

Having achieved six impossible things in his long life, a trillionaire inventor decides for his final act to build a railroad from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Convinced he's gone senile, his grown children scheme to stop him before he squanders their inheritence on what they're sure will be his failure.

Luigi's Place

After years of getting kicked around in other people's restaurants, Luis -- aka Luigi -- opens his own. It becomes a neighborhood place, even though the food kind of sucks -- until the customers take over the kitchen.

Travelling Light

A nebbish flees the city and takes to the road, where he falls in with a a good-natured pair of veteran travelers, hitchhikers, and minor con-men. They leech him of his money and possessions, in exchange for levity, self-confidence, and lessons in travelling light -- until, in solving a transportation problem, he goes too far, stealing a car and committing assault in the process.

Flight of the Silver Lady

A veteran aircrew steals the WWII B-25 bomber "Silver Lady" from the Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon, and flies it to the White House to deliver a message: a needless war that bankrupts us at home is not the freedom we fought for.

First Life

Faced with bankruptcy when corn prices drop (again), Buttermilk Flinty turns his farm into a rehab center for tech addicts, where, deprived of gaming consoles, cell phones, and even email, they're forced to give up the virtual and get back to the real. It's more fun than they think, but a group of hardcore users won't give up without a fight.

Flipping Out

Rejected by every college to which he applied, Luke, a small-town kid working at the Pig-in-a-Poke diner, decides to become the fastest short-order cook in the world -- a quest that takes him to the Short Order World Championships, where he must find the confidence to face down the ruthless, batter-spoiling, grease-bombing, dirty-trick-playing reigning champ, Seamus McNasty, in the Unlimited Breakfast Cookoff.

On the River

A family living in a town straddling the US-Canadian border is torn in two when the US threatens war with its northern neighbor over water rights to irrigate its arid West. Laura and John, caught on the fault line, struggle to hold together a fracturing community with the love they hold for each other, even as John is called up by the US military, and Laura is tasked with providing the Canadians with intelligence on his actions.

Beyond the Green Zone

Convinced that the Administration neither knows nor cares how bad the situation is on the ground in his security sector, a rogue Army Colonel abducts an official from the Green Zone, and opens his eyes to the horrors outside; but the official's corporate connections, working in reconstruction, will do anything to keep the truth from getting out.

The Devil Next Door

Janine, 39, single mother of two, haunted by nightmares, comes to believe that her next door neighbor is the devil; but when the school nurse discloses bruising around her children's genitals, the truth may be worse -- and harder to accept -- especially when someone claiming to be the real Devil shows up, and proposes a solution.

Walk on Water

A lifelong atheist has visions of God incarnate throwing himself from the observation deck of the Empire State Building, surrounded in light -- visions so compelling that he's driven to try the same thing. Believing that he's found a path to divinity, he gathers a cult of followers, and together they set off to try it again -- this time, over Niagara Falls.

The Ghost of Little Bend

The sole survivor of a shipwreck wanders the Northwest, unable to remember who he is or how he go there, until he walks in on his own memorial service; but, even when he makes himself known, no one thinks he's alive: having grieved him and given him up for dead, they believe him to be a ghost.

service bulletin

This is a service bulletin, not a logline.

I'm flying out to Portland, Oregon today for a bike trip that will take me down the Pacific Coast to San Francisco, then east by train to Denver, for my fiancee's brother's wedding on October 5th. According to my cell carrier's coverage maps, I'll have minimal data connectivity along much of my route, so there may be occasional lapses in posting.

I'll be out on my own on a touring bike, doing some hill-climbing, soul-searching, and undergoing my first camping experiences, so new loglines, when available, should be pleasantly weird. I hope you'll stay tuned.

- Adam

The Minuteman

At 32, Jack has overcome most of the challenges of adulthood, except the premature ejaculation that has scuttled his every attempt at love. Now he's met the woman of his dreams, and must find something more distracting than baseball, more dour than nuns, if he wants to win her for more than a minute.

Twenty Questions

A group of high school friends reunites twenty years after graduation to spend two weeks at a beach house in the Hamptons, where they get to know each other's adult selves by playing twenty questions: animal, vegetable, or mineral; arriviste, vagrant, or murderer.

The Soul of a Guitar

Ray, a legendary builder of custom guitars, disillusioned with hard work and little profit, wants to sell his practice to finance his retirement. No one who can meet his asking price can match his standards, until he meets RAY II, a cyborg from Global Instruments. Now he must train RAY II in everything he knows -- but is mastery a matter of craftsmanship or of soul?

Permanent Link

Gilda Swanson is sentenced to death for assaulting her sister -- twenty eight years ago, just after privacy ended, and total surveillance began. If she wants to stay alive, she has to find a way past the Core of Justice, a global judicial WAN whose word is law, and get to her sister, whose forgiveness is her only hope.

The Laughter of Matthew Forrest

The one rich man in an town in Maine learns that he has six weeks to live. Believing himself childless, he promises all his property to the first man who can make him laugh -- which he has not done in fifty-seven years.

Mom and Apple Pie

A professional mother and her goth daughter drive from New York back to the Georgia countryside, to get Grandma's recipe for apple pie before she passes away, and to find out when that's going to happen; but not only is Grammy alive and kicking, she's got a girlfriend.

Clothes Make the Man

When he commissions a bespoke suit from a voodoo tailor, Rob Marks rapidly climbs the ladder of business success. But the suit gets under his skin, and makes him as acquisitive of his competitors as a zombie is of human flesh -- successful, until with a wild, rapacious scheme he goes too far, and only his dying humanity can save him, if it's worth saving.

In Silicon Valley, No One Hears You Scream

Jeremy, 29, a rising star of high-tech, breaks his contract's non-compete clause -- the one that says, "Violation may result in physical termination" -- when he leaves a major Internet company to head a startup. Now his lead programmer is on a bad trip, tech support in Mumbai is on strike, and his ex-employer's hit man is closing in.

Camping with Chloë

April, 16, leaves her emotionally-abusive home on a solo camping trip in Northern California. In her first brush with danger, she meets Chloë, a Park Ranger ten years her senior, who takes the girl under her wing. With Chloë, April has her first experiences in life and love, and learns that the world can judge as cruelly as her family; but through it all, April learns to love herself.

The Beacon

Pre-teens on both sides of the US-Mexican border in Texas light signal fires to each other as a sign of friendship; but when the Border Patrol douses the northern light on the grounds that it might be seen as a beacon for illegal immigration, Guillermo, on the Mexican side, sets out on a dangerous journey across the frontier to find out what became of his friend.

The Point

Sometimes, the unthinkable happens. When an accident causes a core breach at The Point, a nuclear power plant on the Hudson, three people -- a retired NYC fireman, living twenty miles upriver; his second wife, a Russian financial analyst, working in Midtown Manhattan; and his son, a cadet at West Point, across the river from the disaster -- must decide whether to fight the fire or flee for their lives -- if escape is possible at all.

The Last Drop

A Federal agent, downsized out of the Bureau, goes in on an espresso bar with the contract killer he turned informant, and was then assigned to protect; but in a town that isn't as peaceful as it looks, they each are given a new target: their #1 customer. The agent needs him alive; the killer needs him dead.

Night of the Bedbug

Giant bedbugs reach Brooklyn in an illicit shipment of Philippine hardwood, and get loose, draining their victims of blood, leaving dry husks behind, and breeding grotesquely in the New York night. An entomologist, an exterminator, and a city cop strive to contain them before they suck the city dry.

Against the Wind

Pursued by creditors and the SEC, a disgraced Wall St. money manager flees a mortgage meltdown on the only thing he has left -- his bicycle -- for the small California town of his birth, on the way meeting the human cost of his profligacy.

The Mayor of Alamogordo

A TV repairman and notary public in New Mexico discovers that he's a Martian, born after a crash-landing, when he receives a message from Mars. Backed by an alien constituency -- legal, terrestrial, and otherwise -- he battles xenophobia and forced repatriation to run for Mayor of Alamogordo, on a platform of amnesty and cold fusion for all.

Lame Duck

A conservative Congressman, outed as a homosexual after an ill-conceived assignation in a public restroom, is violently rebuked by his constituents, his friends, and even his wife. Out of a home, and soon to be out of a job, he turns for understanding to the only family left to him: his children, now adult, and living far away, whose youngest years he sacrificed to his career.

Albert in Twilight

A disgraced Administration official resigns and returns to private life, but his idyll is shattered when a snooping journalist uncovers documents he thought had been destroyed. If he can't cover his tracks in time, can he buy his privacy with a bigger story?

Life of Reilly

A handyman hooks a movie star client, and then her friends, but the celebrity lifestyle is one of discipline and hard work, instead of the debauchery he expects. Can he keep the pace without falling victim to his bad habits?

As I Like It

A progressive theater director's plan to marry the heroine Rosalind to the lusty shepherdess in a production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is aided, then thwarted, when the actresses in the roles fall in and out of love in real life.

The Kingdom by the Sea

A Manhattan billionaire and his entourage proclaim a small Long Island town his kingdom, and secede from the Union, leaving the residents torn between subservient prosperity and proud ruin.

On the Road Again

A grizzled long-haul trucker confronts his reckless past when he picks up a dangerous hitchhiker -- the daughter he didn't know he had -- and helps her track down and take revenge on the man who stole her innocence.

Semper Fry

A Marine Corps fuck-up, consigned to kitchen patrol, brokers a fragile peace in a small Iraqi town on the strength of his irresistible French fries.

My Name is Achilles

A high school football quarterback falls though a wormhole into the Trojan War, to find himself mistaken for a hero in the Greek camp, and expected to defeat their enemy's most feared soldier.