About Me
Brenda ("Bobo") Whitehall launched her journalism career in 1986 while attending McMaster University in her hometown Hamilton, Ontario. She moved to Los Angeles, lived in her car with a gay man, survived on pop tarts and Coca Cola, and eventually relocated to Vancouver in 1994. She hasn't eaten a pop tart since!
Over the past two decades, Whitehall has worked in print, radio and television. She produced two compilation benefit CDs for the Hamilton AIDS Network - "Rock My Child" and "Human Quilt" - working with such hometown notables as Tom Wilson (Junkhouse, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings), Harrison Kennedy, King Biscuit Boy, Jackie Washington, Rita Chiarelli, Ray Lyell, and members of Teenage Head and Crowbar. She also spent a lot of time in Nashville interviewing country artists.
In the early 1990s, Whitehall directed music videos that garnered MuchMusic rotation; wrote and produced several radio documentaries; was the managing editor of The HAMMER Magazine (a popular arts and entertainment publication in Southern Ontario that she started with multi-talented blues musician Lily Sazz), and then "retired" from the music business in the late 1990s to focus on scriptwriting.
She's met, photographed and/or interviewed hundreds of international entertainers - such as Shania Twain, Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge, Sarah McLachlan (who sat on her lap on a toilet in St. Catherines, Ontario for a photo op), k.d. lang, Daniel Lanois (who made her Tutti-Frutti herbal tea at his house), Wynonna Judd, Lea Delaria, Reba McEntire, Pat Benatar, Bonnie Raitt, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Stevie Nicks, KISS, Billy Joel among others, and has been published in magazines and newspapers across North America.
Whitehall also contributed a lesbian erotica piece to the book The Good Parts, published by Alyson Publications in Los Angeles; and Tales of Travelrotica for Lesbians, Volume 2 (under a pseudonym), published by Alyson Publications in New York.
In February 2007, Whitehall collaborated with a San Diego, California writer on a scene for The L Word Fans on Film scriptwriting contest. Their contribution ranked number three in North America (receiving two prestigious spotlights, including one from L Word staff writer Ariel Schrag). They've since expanded their project into a two-hour feature film script.
Whitehall currently works in communications, and is a guest contributor to the gay and lesbian bi-weekly Xtra West, published by Pink Triangle Press. She's about to start work on her first animated short film.
And yes, the rumours are true that she shaved her legs in the Mississippi River; tripped in front of Whitney Houston (twice!); was accidentally kicked by Laura Branigan ("Gloria"); met award-winning Canadian country singer Michelle Wright on a Greyhound bus heading to northern Ontario; had to kiss the Blarney Stone twice because she missed "the spot" the first time (and wonders why she's single); couldn't speak one word when meeting the legendary Dolly Parton; had Tammy Wynette hand over her fur coat thinking she was "the coat check girl" backstage at an awards show; stole a brick from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville during its renovations (only to lose it in a car crash afterwards), and got a 120 mph wedgie while skydiving.
Whitehall sponsors two children - a little girl in Nepal and a little boy in Nigeria - through Foster Parents Plan Canada. She's a cancer survivor and card-carrying Spiritualist.
Brenda Whitehall and Mary Anne McEwen also make up the Vancouver-based, writing duo CousinsXX. The two writers met by fate in 1994 when Brenda cold-called Mary Anne after finding her name (the same as Brenda's maternal great-grandmother) in the Reel West Digest directory. After some brief genealogy discussions, the duo decided they must be cousins "on the Irish side", and began collaborating on their first made-for-TV movie script Silicone Dreams.
Although Silicone Dreams achieved a third read at Spelling Productions in Los Angeles, the writers were told their script was too political as Dow Corning was a major advertiser on network television.
Since then, CousinsXX have continued collaborating on numerous projects, including another MOW and a one-hour TV pilot (Last Summer). In the spring of 2006, they submitted - on a whim - four scenes to the North American scriptwriting contest for the television show The L Word - cracking the Top 10 per cent in each round, and making the finals twice with "Mayhem and Malapropisms" (2nd place) and "Cops, Clones and Carpenters" (3rd place).
And in December 2006, their scene "Leaving Lost Whistler" ranked second place out of 101 North American script submissions in The L Word Quickie scriptwriting contest, receiving kudos and a spotlight from Ariel Schrag, one of the show's writers. They remain the only Canadian writing team to ever reach the finals.
CousinsXX are currently producing a Holocaust documentary, and continue working on solo projects. Visit www.myspace.com/cousinsxxproductions.
I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
