BIOGRAPHY
Shannon knew she wanted to write for animation since age thirteen.Contact with several animation writers encouraged her on her path, and she moved to Los Angeles in 1996.Once there, she went on to work for Sony Pictures Family Entertainment, where her first job was as a Production Assistant on Jumanji: The Animated Series.Her hard work quickly earned her a promotion to Production Coordinator on Extreme Ghostbusters, also for Sony.However, wanting to pursue her dream, Shannon left production to better her background as a writer.During those years, she worked in office capacities for places such as The Writers Store and Michael Ovitz's (now defunct) Artists Television Group.In 2001, her studies complete, Shannon returned to animation production as a Production Coordinator for Nickelodeon's Invader Zim until early 2002.In the first half of 2003, Milky Cartoon Ltd., a Japanese animation company, hired her to write three 11-minute animation scripts and co-write two scripts with the love of her life, Kevin Paul Shaw Broden.
Before she left for Los Angeles, Shannon put up a fan website for the series Voltron, including the stories she’d sent to the show as a teen.Originally envisioned to help her make the break from fan to pro, her Voltron website is considered one of the foremost in the fan community.World Events Productions, the company behind Voltron, later consulted with her to develop the official starmap for the show when they produced the follow-up series, Voltron: The Third Dimension.
Shannon received a Professional Certificate in Screenwriting and Television from UCLA Extension in Los Angeles, where her instruction at UCLA included an animation scriptwriting class taught by Greg Weisman and Kevin Hopps.She also has a BA in Radio-TV and English from Eastern Washington University (Cheney, WA), where she primarily studied under the late Dr. David Terwische.In Summer of 2005, she completed work on her MA in Mass Communications at California State University, Fullerton. Her research into the effectiveness of animated versus live-action spokespeople can be purchased through academic distribution channels or at amazon.com.
She's annually attended Comic Con International: San Diego since 1996, spoke there in 2000 and 2001, spoke at other conventions such as Gathering of the Gargoyles (2001 and 2005), and volunteered at the ASIFA-Hollywood booth for severa years.Also, Shannon appeared at The Gathering of The Gargoyles convention on panels related to her professional experience.
Also, Shannon co-created and co-authors the webcomic Flying Glory and the Hounds of Glory with artist/writer Kevin Paul Shaw Broden, which can be read at http://www.flying-glory.com.
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Last Updated:October 7, 2006