Andrew was educated at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland and the University of California at Santa Cruz.  He has authored The Cigar Connoisseur along with numerous magazine articles on cigars, food & wine and travel.  Aside from these areas of interest, Andrew has written for both film and television having sold an original screenplay as well as a two-hour A&E Biography.

In the television industry it can be said that "it all begins with the script."  In part, this notion recognizes the prominence of writers in the early days of live television, when authors established the medium as an arena for the exploration of character, psychology, and moral complexity in close intimate settings. 

With the television industry's move to Hollywood in the 1950s, and its increasing reliance on filmed, formulaic, studio factory productions, writers were often cheapened to "hack" status, churning out familiar material that was almost interchangeable across genres.  This view oversimplifies, of course, and ignores extraordinary work in television series but it does capture conventional assumptions and expectations. 

Currently almost every major producer in American television is also a writer.  Writers oversee series development and production, create new programs, and see to the coordination and conceptual coherence of series in progress.  Their skills are highly valued and, for the very successful few, extremely highly rewarded.  Never the less, the role of the writer is affected by many other issues, and despite new respect and prominence, remains a complex, often conflicted position within the television industry.  

The film and television industries have been, until quite recently, very separate entities.  Even in the early years of television writers were recruited not from film but from radio and the theater. In many ways, the environment for writers in television still remains distinct from that of the film industry.  TV writers are quick to remark that it is nearly impossible to start out in television and move on to film, but that there are no barriers to moving in the other direction--it is, rather, a fact that writers in the film industry will not write television "unless they are starving."  This belief summarizes a power relationship in which writers are clearly identified as either "television" or "film," or even by genre, early in their careers.  One important difference lies in the common perception that writers in television have more clout, simply because there is a well-defined career path by which writers can move up through the ranks of a production company to become a senior producer and therefore control their work in ways typically denied to film scriptwriters.  

An interesting component of writing for television is the hierarchical organization of the profession.  Production companies employ "staff writers," although most TV writers work as freelancers competing for a diminishing number of assignments.  Towards the bottom of the pyramid are the outside freelancers who may write no more than two or three episodes a season for various shows.  The top tier is composed of the producers and executive producers.  In between are readers, writer's assistants, a handful of junior staff writers (with contracts of varying lengths), and assistant and associate producers.  Producer titles are often given to writers and are usually associated with seniority and supervisory responsibilities for a writing team.  The desirable career path, then, involves moving from freelancer, to staff writer, to associate producer, to supervising producer to executive producer.  Executive producers are given sole responsibility for controlling a television series, are usually owners or part owners of the series, and may work on several series at once.  

Writers generally become executive producers by creating their own series.  This transition usually occurs only after writing successfully in other positions, and after being recognized by studio and network executives as someone with the potential to create and control a series.  Only in the rarest of circumstances are new program ideas purchased or developed from freelancers or beginning writers.  

The position of the reader is a critical element in the freelance television writer's working life, because they control whether or not one's work reaches senior staff with hiring authority much like in the film industry.  Readers analyze samples of a writer's work and evaluate the appropriateness of a writer's skills, experience, and background for the series, and they are used routinely as a "first cut" mechanism throughout the industry.  The criteria used by readers are often very specific, sometimes seemingly arbitrary, but because of their importance TV writers learn to write for the reader in order to advance to the next level.  

The role of an agent is also an important detail of a television writer's life because production companies and their readers generally will not consider any work from a writer unless it is submitted by an agent, preferably an agent known to that production company.  A common frustration for writers is that agents refuse to represent writers without credits but credits cannot be earned without agent representation.  

The Writer's Guild Of America has warned that contemporary writers face a hostile environment with ageism and sexism a common complaint.  Hollywood is enamored with youth culture and consequently producers and network executives often seek creative talent they feel will be capable of addressing that audience.  According to WGA statistics, a definite bias toward younger writers has emerged in the industry.  

Because the production of most television shows must be "deficit-financed" (network payment for the rights to the series is less than the cost to produce the episodes) writers often bear the brunt of the resulting financial insecurity, taking less cash upfront in salary or per-episode fees and hoping for healthy residuals if the series becomes successful.  Despite this harsh reality, hundreds of aspiring writers write thousands of new scripts each year, hoping for the chance to write the next huge hit.  Perseverance and tenacity are definitely prerequisites for the job.