Why Athena TV?

From the beginning of my TV career, I've been a woman warrior in some traditionally male purviews. At times this has been to my advantage -- I'm told, at least, that being a girl whose pigeonhole is action-adventure has set me apart. I think this was more true when I started out than it is now -- on my last Sci-fi Channel gig, 3 out of 5 writers on staff were female.

Athena is an apt avatar for me -- so much so that when I bought my house over a decade ago, I christened it Casa Athena in honor of the bust of the Greek Goddess that had been installed in a backyard niche by the previous owner. This despite the fact that the bust -- as I later learned from the learned Dr. Amy, Renegade Archeologist -- is actually Aphrodite. Oooops. Aphrodite, I'm sorry to say, was not then and is not now a relevant household goddess in my life.

My other reason for naming my online home after this now-beloved figure stems from my ongoing rediscovery of what drew me to my profession in the first place. Writing science fiction is an opportunity for examining larger questions of humanity in an allegorical framework. The ancient tales of Athena and her olympian cohort are the direct ancestors of our modern "mythologies" of Star Trek and Star Wars, Superman and Batman, and yes, Duncan MacLeod and Nick Knight.