William Craig Pugh

Screenwriter, Author and Editor

Omaha, Nebraska

Member Since:
July 2015

Last online:
> 2 weeks ago

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About William

I have lived a life of words. I was an Air Force military journalist, so I rode around in bombers and fighters, went down in missile silos, covered an Air Force couple keeping a Korean orphanage afloat -- things like that. Fun job. But it wasn't all writing. I also edited the Air Combat Command News Service, Langley AFB, Va., and the base newspaper at Goodfellow AFB, San Angelo, Texas. I was then the city hall reporter for the Longview, Texas, daily newspaper before getting an English M.A. and teaching college English and writing in Omaha, Nebraska.

I love the power of story and the power of words properly harnessed. I take particular joy in creating something that I know is good. It takes a lot of work and a lot of study to get there, but I'm always willing to go the distance with writing. Five drafts? All right. Six? Well, okay. Seven? Hey look: enough is enough! LOL. Pound it down in the forge, that's my motto. And keep swinging that hammer. If the Muse shows up, I want her to see me working. I'm also a poet with two volumes of poetry published and a third on the way. Moreover, I write short story fiction. My book of 12 marijuana short stories has been out 24 years now and is the only literary short-story fiction on the subject. I'm also ready to publish a volume of short stories that has absolutely nothing to do with cannabis.

Somehow my first three screenplays were marijuana-themed. They were a drama and two comedies. The drama explores not romantic nor platonic but sibling love, which is what I like about it. Unusual, no? Ganja Tales (the dramatic screenplay) is about a brother with Iraq War PTSD who is driving his epileptic sister from Omaha to Seattle on a cannabis journey of healing and compassion. The comedies are crazy. One is a Rip van Winkle story that takes place in Russia between 1937 and 2017; the other screenplay has the Civil War as its setting, the Antebellum South in 1859. And both of them have music all over the place. Fun! My most recent dramedy screenplay, Mosi Khaba's Revenge, is also too much fun. Think Nile crocodiles, pyramids and ETs.-- all in ancient Egypt, circa 1700 B.C.

Unique traits: VERY well read passionate introvert vegetarian peace-loving half-crazy writer.

Gender:
Male

Height:
6'

Weight:
165

Body type:
Slim

Hair:
Short

Hair color:
Grey

Eyes:
Blue

Ethnicity:
Caucasian

Badges

2024-11-05

Writers' Room Member

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The Bolshevik Brew -- favorite drink of Communists. Packs a punch like a Moscow mule.

Oh boy! Rotgut Russian, the Communist cocktail. I really need to talk with Svetlana about sobering up and getting into AA.

I wrote nine marijuana short stories in the late '90s. In 2000 I had them printed up down in Kansas City (2,500 copies). Took me about six years to sell them. Met some nice people, went to some cool festivals.

So it's pretty crazy how I did the Ganja Tales screenplay. I pulled three stories out of my Ganja Tales short story volume and wove them into the larger narrative of a 100-page drama, also called Ganja Tales. What do you do when you're on a road trip? You tell stories. So the Ganja Tales screenplay is a road trip cannabis healing story in which the characters tell their own personal marijuana stories as they all roll down the road. In short, it's stories imbedded within a story. Yes, eyes glaze over when I pitch it!

Loglines

Mosi Khaba's Revenge Drama ⋄ Comedy A poisoned pharaoh woken from a 3,000 year slumber vows to regain her throne, only it's 2024 and she's got amnesia and a wicked hangover.
Ganja Tales Drama A brother battles demons both inside and out while driving his epileptic sister cross-country to Seattle to grow legal marijuana for her seizures and his Iraq War PTSD. But when his sister is kidnapped, an ex-stripper with ESP teaches him that violence alone won’t save her.
The Osipenko File Comedy ⋄ Historical Disgraced secret-service major accidentally let out of Kremlin ice coffin after a decade in deep freeze seeks redemption from Stalin, who tells her she goes back in the ice unless she captures the rebel leader, but when she finally closes in on him, he thaws her brain and she remembers they were lovers. So they march on Moscow.
Southern Bud Comedy Five Southern Belles use all their womanly charms to outsmart traitors and assassins to prevent the Civil War by getting Abe Lincoln and Jeff Davis together to free the slaves and make fabled Southern Bud marijuana available to all Yankees.