BACK CHANNEL is a political thriller, inspired by news reports of secret negotiations between Saddam Hussein's government and the Bush administration prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The story focuses on an American intelligence officer who is contacted by an Iraqi diplomat -- an old friend -- with an offer to negotiate. The official's life, both professional and personal, is thrown into danger when he reports the contact to the office of the Vice-President. BACK CHANNEL, while a work of fiction, echoes many of the events that have come to light in the years since the invasion of Iraq.

On the night of October 25th, 1929, the French writer Stendhal set about to write his classic novel Le Rouge et Le Noir, which had been inspired by the trial of a young seminarian, Antoine Berthet, who was charged with killing his mistress, a married woman from a provincial town. In Hilsman's dramatic comedy, we learn the story of the seminarian, a poor farm boy with a secret enthusiasm for Napoleon. Berthet is sent to tutor the child of a provincial mayor and, before long, begins an affair with the mayor's wife. When her husband discovers her affair, she ends their relationship and confesses...

Family Values is a full-length comedy by Hoyt Hilsman. Set in Washington, DC, the play is about a Senator from Idaho and his oddball family. When son Duncan returns from his first semester at college, he discovers that his room has been turned over to an itinerant reporter for the BBC. His father is in the midst of a political campaign, his mother is trying to remember when the family dog died, and his sixteen-year old sister is about to elope to Las Vegas with her lesbian lover. Family Values is part of a family trilogy, which includes Foggy Bottom, which was adapted as a television pilot,...

In March, 2008, the eighty-five year old brokerage firm of Bear Stearns was in deep trouble, bloated with failing mortgage-backed securities. On the verge of bankruptcy, the management of Bear Stearns spent a hectic weekend in negotiations with the major banks and the federal government in an effort to save the company. For Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the leaders of the international banks, and investors like Warren Buffet, the stakes were even higher - saving the global economy. In this fast-paced screenplay, the big players in this Wall Street drama reveal both the strengths and...

When author, journalist and political commentator Hoyt Hilsman joined The Huffington Post editors as a contributor in the fall of 2008, he had just finished a second unsuccessful campaign for Congress in California, but he still had lots to say about the politics and culture of our country. Since then, he has written over a hundred essays for HuffPost, on topics ranging from gun control to Brittney Spears, with a focus on American politics and culture. As an unabashed Democratic centrist (or more precisely center-left), Hilsman believes in an activist government to meet the needs of all the...

It's October, 1962. Soviet missiles in Cuba are poised to launch at the US. President Kennedy announces a blockade on TV. Fear grips America. Sixteen-year old Duncan Ambrose wants to lose his virginity before the world ends. Which could be in about 36 hours. He'd also like to figure out the meaning of life. Which could also be a challenge. Duncan's family won't be much help. His father, head of Intelligence for the State Department and famous for his very bad haircut, is away in a secret location briefing the President on the crisis. His mother is too busy crying over the kitchen sink to...

The tragic, epic story of Nelson Rockefeller - colorful scion of the wealthiest family in America, philanthropist and philanderer, collector of art and women, equally reviled by the political left and right, Vice-President and candidate for President, the scourge of the Attica Prison riots and the savior of New York. From his privileged but bleak upbringing to his firestorm life, from his dynamic personality to his scandalous divorce, from his priceless art collection to his sudden death in the arms of his mistress, this is the story of an outsized figure - and one of America's greatest...

This is the story of Perpetua, a young Roman woman living in the city of Carthage in North Africa early in the 3rd century A.D. Perpetua came from a noble Roman family, was a wife and mother of a young child and was secretly a Christian at a time when they were being widely persecuted. When the Roman governor ordered the arrest of Christians - mostly lower-caste servants and others - Perpetua publically declared her faith. Despite her nobleman father's pleas to save herself, she insisted on being treated like any other believer. After a long imprisonment and trial, Perpetua died as a martyr...

What is behind the economic cycle that resulted in the excesses of the late twentieth century and the Great Recession of the twenty-first century? Is it simply part of the ebb and flow of the worldwide economy? Or is it just human nature to fall victim to endless cycles of boom and bust? Certainly there have been periods throughout human history when economies have risen and fallen, and when human greed and risk-taking has resulted in great catastrophes. But is this period somehow different, and, if so, what is the underlying dynamic that we are experiencing? Idonomics - the triumph of the...

We've all experienced times of great uncertainty. A health crisis. A rocky marriage. A stressful job. And these crises can tap into our deepest fears of the uncertain, the unknowable, the unforeseen. How do we respond? Because uncertainty is so painful, we too often seek the quickest resolution of that pain. We flee from the unhappy marriage. Quit the job. Try to escape through denial or addiction. Or, hungering for simple solutions, we bury our heads in the sands of fixed and rigid certainty. We cling to dogma, science, prejudice. Put our trust in gurus, unyielding political beliefs or...