As I write this, the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships are concluding in Prague, Czech Republic. When I was publishing International Figure Skating, it was this time of year that I would usually find myself out of the country, attending the pinnacle competition of the skating season. Last year, “Worlds” was held in Boston. Whether attending domestically or abroad, they are fondly remembered days not just for the competition on the ice, but sometimes even better, the action off the ice.

When I started writing Serpentine, I wanted to take the audience through an entire skating season and introduce them to the variety of characters I used to work with regularly. Yes, most of the characters in Serpentine are based on people I know. Even the intelligence-agency aspect of the story is based on someone associated with the sport. Naturally, I won’t divulge any names, but whenever we came across this champion skater, we were always told not to photograph her husband. All I knew at the time was that he “worked for the government.” I recently learned that he was with the FBI’s counter-terrorism division in finance.

I was recently asked if what I posit in Serpentine with a mysterious, unnamed intelligence agency could in fact be true. The simple answer is, I don’t know one way or another. I do know that I often came across some people behind the scenes who didn’t seem to have any clear-cut reason for being where they were. Whether it’s true or not, it adds to the mystery surrounding this Olympic sport. It also seems to be resonating with the film festival market.

Since my last post, Serpentine has won best script awards at the Beyond Border International Film Festival and the Tamizhagam International Film Festival. The feedback I’ve been getting is that festivals like how a political thriller of spies and foreign intrigue is woven in and around this Olympic sport.  That was my goal when I started to write it. While I wanted to celebrate the sport, I didn’t want to spend an inordinate amount of time on the ice, as I wanted to attract the broadest possible audience. As an example, while I’m not an enthusiast of tennis, I love Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.  

But what I believe makes figure skating attractive on so many levels is just that, the intrigue of it all. You have a sport set against majestic music, with a panel of judges subjectively awarding points to what they see on the ice, with final decisions made behind closed doors. Combine all that with the media and larger-than-life personalities on and off the ice, and stories are born. My book, Frozen Assets, illuminates a sampling of the personalities and politics in figure skating.

While Serpentine continues to wind its way through the festival market, there’s one complete film I’m looking forward to seeing on the silver screen today — Ben-Hur. Winner of 11 Academy Awards along with numerous nominations, this 1959 spectacle of the big screen is returning for a limited theatrical run through Fathom Entertainment.  

Although I’ve seen Ben-Hur several times, I have yet to see it the way it was intended to be seen—in a movie theatre. There is something to be said for these grand entertainment experiences, as these types of motion pictures represent a time when what you saw on screen was either purpose-built, augmented with a matte painting, or created using pioneering effects work (The parting of the Red Sea – The Ten Commandments). As I told a friend of mine coming with me today to see this historic film, it’s worth it just for the chariot race.

The white handkerchief.