Two Men and A Typewriter

Two Men and A Typewriter is a creative storytelling collaboration between authors Paul Barrett and Steve Murphy. Lifelong friends, Paul and Steve have been writing together in one form or another since high school, starting with short stories and Dungeons and Dragons adventures and moving on to novels, screenplays, and commercials. Between them, they have over 40 years of experience writing in various disciplines.

Paul Barrett

Paul has lived a varied life full of excitement and adventure. Not really, but it sounds good as an opening line.

His multiple careers have included: rock and roll roadie, children’s theater stage manager, television camera operator, mortgage banker, and support specialist for Microsoft Excel.

He has always been involved in one creative endeavor or another, starting with live theater as an actor at age 11 and progressing into backstage work.

This eclectic mix allowed him to go into his true love: motion picture production. He has produced two motion pictures and two documentaries: His film Night Feeders released on DVD in 2007 and Cold Storage was released by Lionsgate in May 2010. When not producing films, he works on them in various capacities, including as script supervisor, as part of the art department, or assisting with set lighting.

Amidst all this, Paul has consistently worked on his writing, starting with his first short story, about Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. He has written creatively since sixth grade, worked on the school newspaper in high school, and was the key copywriter for industrials and commercials at Indievision, the marketing company he co-owned for a decade. His scripts have won both Telly and Communicator Awards. He and Steve have had screenplays optioned by various production companies, although none have yet gone into production.

Born in North Carolina, Paul has lived there most of his life and still resides there with three cats and his film director/graphic designer husband.

You can learn even more about Paul at his personal website.

Steve Murphy

A relative newcomer to the film and writing industry, Steve Murphy is nonetheless no stranger to people and resource management and is intimately familiar with participating in teamwork. He has spent much of his life in uniform, starting with four years in the Navy as a GMM (Gunners Mate Missiles) – earning the Navy Expeditionary Medal and Navy Unit Commendation. This was followed by two years in the Army National Guard where he worked as a FiST (forward observer). Steve then became a police officer in Charlotte, NC, where he spent 23 years. Fourteen of those years he was on the SWAT team, 9 of which he worked as a sniper.

During all these adventures Steve dealt with a wide variety of personalities, many of which he had to corral toward a common goal, especially in his years with the police force, where he worked as a supervisor in charge of a 33-person unit. In addition, he took the lead on a multi-jurisdictional terrorism response task force, where he assisted in funding allocation, disbursement of equipment, and the training of personnel.

As a writer, Steve has three published novels with co-writer Paul Barrett, and a couple of more currently undergoing developmental edits. Paul and Steve have written several screenplays, many of which have placed highly in national competitions.

Steve is not a stranger to production, having worked as a military/law consultant on several projects, a set dresser for films, and a lighting technician in live theater. But his main strength as an associate producer is in project management and ensuring that producers stay on target and time and helping deal with any problems that come up with the crew. In addition, his knowledge of military protocol and interest in military history help films maintain verisimilitude in all the military aspects.

The father of two now adult boys, Steve lives on a farm in North Carolina with his wife, two dogs and an elusive cat.