🧭 Feeling somehow off course?
Then story is our compass.
It helps us reimagine who we are and who we’re becoming.
I’m Michael, welcoming you to The Lighthouse, a resource for people in motion - those of us navigating creative blocks, life transitions, and the moments that feel like crossroads, when we really stop and ask: “What story do I want to be telling, here?”
Join 15K+ subscribers in receiving one or two deep-dive newsletters each month.
We explore how stories shape us, and how we shape them, through cinema, travel, and everyday life. Think part film journal, part travelogue, and part field notes.
The Lighthouse points the way with:
Story as medium. Film analysis that builds understanding, empathy, and observational power, connecting you to a craft that “explains a culture to itself”.
Story as experience. Dispatches from my nomadic life on the road, designed to invite you to see the world in new ways.
Story as reflection. Essays on creativity, identity, and how the choices we make shape our lives, offering insights for navigating our own journeys.
Because everyone knows what it feels like to get lost in the plot - whether creatively, personally, or both. I’ve been there, more than once:
Adrift in the wreckage of failed projects.
Wondering where the spark has gone and how to get it back.
Picking up the pieces of a broken relationship.
Starting over in a new country, on a different continent - again.
Writing this About page.
If you’re stuck in a creative project, untangling a knotty turning point, or simply trying to move with greater intention, you’re in the right place. So pull up a chair. Let’s reflect, reorient, and reclaim the story you’re telling, on the page or in your life.
Because that’s how to get from where you are to where you want to go.
I’ve spent the past 15 years helping people do just that. First, as the director of Lights Film School (RIP), where I led 1000s of people in telling stories for the screen.
And these days, as an award-winning writer and mentor living and working cross-culturally - through screenplays developed on-commission and on-spec, and through my post here at The Lighthouse. I also consult 1:1 with creatives, founders, and other curious minds, so that no matter the medium, their story is one worth telling.
You don’t have to figure it out alone.
The Lighthouse unites perspectives from 140+ different countries. It’s your home for real conversation, with film discussions, writing exercises, and reflective prompts that illuminate a path that makes sense for you.
It’s where we can meet and find the way forward, together.
Intrigued? Here are a few good places to start:
The Search for the Ninth Path 🔗. On finding a way of life that makes sense for you, whether or not it’s a road well-traveled.
What if we’re making things worse? 🔗 One of the favorite film breakdowns I’ve written, wrapped around an existential spiral. Dune, anyone?
2 months exploring The Roof of the World. 🔗 A travelogue subscribers love. Bundle up and trek with me through The Himalayas of Nepal.
In a world where story shrapnel are attacking from all directions, with each one attempting to bamboozle my brain into attention, it is very soothing to listen to your gentle invitation to share in your experience… With what feels like a sincere and humble empathy… you reveal small and simple, yet rich and often overlooked, experiences which remind us of how big and round the world is, and how little I really know of it.” - Danielle C.
“I love what you’re doing with The Lighthouse… It’s such a great way to offer deep thought, information, and analysis.” - Lauren H.
“Somehow you are writing and thinking about the same things we have been wrestling with… I believe that we human beings understand and process life through story, and that we need stories to keep understanding it better. Thank you for your work!” - Victoria B.
More than a newsletter, The Lighthouse illuminates a path back to yourself and your best work through the power of story.
If this resonates, I hope you’ll join us!
