Colleen’s short fiction, essays, and poetry were first published nationally while she was still in high school.  At sixteen, Colleen was selected to attend the Breadloaf Young Writers' Conference at Middlebury College, where she studied under Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.)  She then briefly attended the very unique Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington, MA., where she finished her first novel, Synesthesia.  Excerpts from Synesthesia have since placed in several literary award competitions. 

As a work-in-progress, Colleen’s second novel, The Myth of Wile E, was a finalist for the Santa Fe Writers' Project Literary Awards, received an honorable mention for a Connecticut state-funded arts grant, and was a two-time finalist for a Chesterfield Fellowship. (The Chesterfield Writers' Film Project, based at Paramount Pictures, offers financial support, career guidance, and a workshop environment to writers of various disciplines who wish to study screenwriting seriously.  Previous Fellows include Vonda McIntyre, and Pulitzer prize winner David Auburn.) 

Colleen’s first screenplay, The Caddy (a teen comedy homage to Billy Wilder), was a Nicholl Fellowship semifinalist, an Austin Film Festival semifinalist, and winner of Gordy Hoffman’s BlueCat.  Her most recent script, The Devil and Harry Houdini, was runner-up at the 2005 Screenwriting Expo and won first place at the 2005 San Diego Screenwriting Competition.  It is currently a finalist at the 2006 Austin Film Festival.

While those cool prizes are all well and good, what she really hopes to win someday is Carl Kasell's voice on her answering machine.

Though not a “joiner” by nature, she does belong to Mensa, because it’s a good place to find fellow book-worms, gamers, and advocates of reason.  A rational zetetic, she nevertheless generally appreciates believers in astrology, feng shui, numerology, ghosts, supernatural creators, space aliens and so forth, for the endearing crackpots those people can be. 

Like the ancient Alexandrians, she tends to prefer silly technological inventions over the practical ones.  For instance, she thinks Roombas and Roboraptors are cool, but detests telephones, and lives happily without a cell phone, microwave oven, or cable television.

A vegetarian for over two decades, she is an advocate for the humane treatment of animals, and is opposed to factory farming.  No, she's not one of those strident "Peta" types.  (Colleen is particularly impressed by this NY Times thought-piece, written by an omnivore, in support of "free" farming.)

Colleen enjoys reading, playing the piano, painting, public radio, science fiction and all that nerdy stuff, games of strategy/trivia/silliness, spicy ethnic vegetarian food, fast cars, slow hikes, and the natural sciences.  And kind strangers who send her books, plants, or Perplex City booster packs for no reason.

She dislikes illeists.  {wink}

Representation:
Paradigm &
Anonymous Content

ONLINE PRESS:

Nicholl Lauds Scribes (Variety, November 4, 2005)
Academy Announces 2005 Nicholl Fellowship Winners (AMPAS, November 3, 2005)
BlueCat Winner Colleen De Maio (interviewed by Gordy Hoffman, 2002)

CURRENT PROJECTS:

Seven Miles (screenplay)

The true story of Robert Smalls, an illiterate slave who plotted the heist of a Confederate steamship and became one of the Civil War's boldest heroes.  After smuggling his wife and children aboard, Smalls (with a crew of twelve other slaves) captained the prize ship in a brazen seven-mile dash through rebel-held Charleston harbor, past heavily guarded forts, to the unsuspecting Union blockade.  He offered the vessel (and his piloting skills) to the Union, and was hired as a captain.  After distinguishing himself in the Union Navy -- ascending to the rank of Major General -- Smalls returned to South Carolina, purchased the mansion in which he had once been a slave, and was elected five times to Congress.

Untitled Screenplay Contest How-to Book  (non-fiction book)

This irreverent guide analyzes the burgeoning industry of screenwriting competitions, dissecting the many contests out there -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Includes interviews with contest directors, effective strategies for winning, and -- most importantly -- step-by-step advice on leveraging those wins into a screenwriting career.  

The Devil and Harry Houdini (novelization of award-winning screenplay)

Summary:  Throughout his marriage, the famous escape artist and notorious skeptic, Harry Houdini, promised his wife that if there really were an afterlife, he’d come back from the “Other Side” to prove it.

But this promise is far from 52-year-old Houdini’s mind when he wakes up one day in a mysterious hotel room, with no idea how he got there.  The room is locked from the outside, and the only window has been sealed off with bricks.  On one wall is a cuckoo clock: stopped.  The nightstand contains a Bible, but all its pages are blank.  There’s a phone by the bedside, but he can’t get an outside line.  And his conversations with so-called “room service” prove to be a maddening exercise in circular logic. 

Using his unique skills, Houdini is able to escape into the hall, but the stairways prove to be downright Escheresque -- forever descending and ascending, never leading anywhere.  And when he meets the enigmatic elevator operator, Houdini realizes that the traps and tricks of this strange place have only just begun.  It seems he sold his soul to become the greatest escape artist the world has ever known -- and now there’s hell to pay.

Desperate to reach his wife and prove to the world that he’s greater than death, Houdini must outwit the Devil -- no slouch himself as an illusionist -- and perform the greatest escape any man has ever attempted:  an escape from hell itself.
 

Check back soon for updates on these projects.

Please note: Colleen receives countless emails requesting screenwriting advice, career guidance, and various other favors.  She regrets that she is quite inundated with work and unfortunately has trouble responding to such emails.  Additionally, she does not accept "free options" nor collaborate on spec, so kindly stop asking about that.  {smile}

If you stumbled here because you're looking to hire a screenwriter or you're looking for someone to give you feedback on your script, please read Colleen's blog first.