Novelist · Screenwriter · Essayist · Filmmaker
Robert M. Herzog is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and filmmaker whose work explores ambition, identity, moral choices, and the contradictions of human behavior. Moving between drama, satire, and speculative fiction, his stories examine people navigating changing worlds, confronting unexpected challenges, and sometimes discovering that their greatest obstacles are themselves.
A published author and award-winning filmmaker, Herzog brings to his creative work decades of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in technology, energy, and healthcare, as well as a lifelong engagement with politics and American culture.
Short Film
Published Books
Screen & Stage
Feature screenplay · In development
Writer · Producer · Co-director
Finalist — Best Drama Screenplay, Austin Short Film Festival, Fall 2026
Semi-Finalist — Chicago Script Awards, 2026
Three ordinary school days, alive with humor, connection and innocence, are shattered by gun violence.
Short film
Writer · Director
Best Film, Short Subject — Cinevue International Film Competition
An ordinary evening at a Williams College dorm in 1968 turns into a night of discovery. Excerpted from the novel Not Our Fathers’ Dreams.
“Herzog manages to paint a tableau of that time that rings true using little more than paper airplanes, matches, and, of course, talent.”— Joyce Schwarz, FilmFestivals.com
Screenplay · In development
Amidst the sultry paddies and verdant levees of the Louisiana bayous, a crawfish farmer’s dark past threatens to erupt, endangering everything he holds dear. The story is published in two parts; the screenplay is in development.
Play in four courses
Over a series of grand lunches, four guys turning 50 in 1996 seek a future that better reflects the hopes of their past.
Selected to be in the NYC Fringe Festival 2027
Work in progress
A poignant story of a son’s world of cutting edge augmented reality technology clashing with his trying to deal with his aging mother and keep his life from unraveling.
Now in development · Feature screenplay
Three ordinary school days—alive with humor, connection, and innocence—are shattered by gun violence. In the aftermath, the familiar chorus of thoughts, prayers, and deflection reveals a tragedy that has become disturbingly routine.
Written and produced by Robert M. Herzog · Co-directed by Robert M. Herzog and Dean Imperial
Co-director. Dean Imperial is a screenwriter, director and producer whose feature film CAPER premiered at SXSW in 2025. His television writing credits include Godfather of Harlem, Hotel Cocaine and Imposters.
Books
Essay collection
Essaying America
There’s the America that is, and the one that could be. These essays explore that gulf between, and how we might bridge it — from the underlying dynamic of American politics, between Republican venality and Democratic haplessness, to the surreal hours and days after 9/11 seen from Lower Manhattan.
“This collection of essays reflects beyond our current political climate; Robert draws together personal stories capturing how the personal will always be political.”— Pamela Chomba, fwd.us
Science fiction · The Story Plant
A Novel
Amazon best seller · Barnes & Noble e-Book of the Day
Parts of the world were disappearing: for a while, nobody noticed. Or cared. But as an increasing number of voids disrupt the fabric of reality, threatening the foundation of the world, they propel some of the greatest minds on the planet to determine what force, godlike or human, is behind the change. Now they must race to stop a dread emptiness before it leads to global oblivion.
“A novel bursting with big ideas and cutting-edge science, A World Between also features a page-turning plot and vivid characters. A smartly-crafted debut novel.”— Rich Rubin
Novel · Excerpts available
A Novel
A novel of a turbulent, strange, wonderful era in American history, when ordinary events were wrapped in extraordinary circumstances. The short film Flights is excerpted from it.
“The weight of this sad time we must obey; speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”— Edgar, King Lear
Novel · Finished, unpublished
A Novel
For decades Hudson River Housing has been a rent-stabilized haven in Manhattan’s West Village: eighteen buildings, three hundred sixty apartments of teachers and firefighters, artists and musicians. Now the owners are threatening market rents — and dangling the dream every New Yorker waits for, the insider price on a co‑op conversion.
Henry can prove the Tenants Association board is about to overpay by forty million dollars. The board would rather not hear it. They throw him out of the meeting, leaving his wife, Genvive, on the board — and in real danger.
Readers on A World Between
★★★★★“A wonderful reflection about the nature of human perception, human reality and its mysterious origins.”— Amazon reader
★★★★★“This is a really modern science fiction book, based in cutting-edge reality of current physics and mathematics… The writing is lovely, with many sparkling turns of phrase, some places infused with rap, others with Joyce.”— Tobi LeBec
★★★★★“A World Between challenges perceptions as only fact-based science fiction can.”— Dan Werner
★★★★★“Great read. I couldn’t put it down. With a unique writing style, Herzog challenges our understanding of physics, religion and God.”— Mark Lieberman
Short Fiction and Poetry
Downstate Story Magazine · Cover story
“He had arrived at the age where men are most vulnerable to folly. The alternative was sadness.”
Writing
Persuasion
What Europe shows us about the ideals America once held dear.
What I learned teaching in a system that funds failure.
As night falls across the Louisiana bayou, the line between memory and desire blurs — and the past refuses to stay buried.
Amidst the sultry paddies and verdant levees of the Louisiana bayous, a crawfish farmer’s dark past threatens to erupt, endangering everything he holds dear.
After writing about kindness and civility, I found myself thinking about their opposite — the way cruelty, when left unchecked, expands.
Boys and men are seriously hurting, academically, socially, healthwise, economically — well, you name it.
I am convulsed by the agonies of our times.
There’s nothing like self-righteous certainty to cut you off from your fellow human.
The fragmentation of America — and whether there is a path to rejoining the pieces.
The underlying dialectic of American politics. From Views from the Side Mirror.
Prejudice can go away when you have a face, but there are too many faces.
Designing the cover for Views from the Side Mirror.
The cure for healthcare isn’t Medicare for All, it’s establishing organizations with complete responsibility for the total care, costs, quality and outcomes for a person.
From the novel A World Between
Parts of the world were disappearing: for a while, nobody noticed. Or cared.
From the novel Board to Death
Making a Killing in New York Real Estate
When I was 24, in 1970, I was dating an extraordinary woman.
An online erotic adventure takes a very strange turn.
Is the metaverse an evolution in human development and communications, or an overcorrection to the pandemic isolation skid?
From the novel Not Our Fathers’ Dreams
Each generation is given just so many choices; the rest it must create.
From the novel Not Our Fathers’ Dreams
All our shadows were growing longer, too soon in our day.
The large brick buildings were tossed at the base of Catherine Street like undelivered packages.
Election Day wasn’t the worst night, Election Day was the beginning.
An Information Architect tries to keep the framework of his life from falling apart.
If the Republicans and Democrats were waiters, we’d send our food back for lousy service.
Would you rather be an NPC to be exploited, or have your finger on the controller?
About
Robert M. Herzog is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and filmmaker whose work explores ambition, identity, moral choices, and the often complicated relationship between individuals and the worlds they inhabit. Moving between drama, satire, and speculative fiction, his stories examine the forces that shape our lives—and the ways people struggle to understand, challenge, or escape them.
His published books include the novel A World Between, selected as a Barnes & Noble e-Book of the Day, and Views from the Side Mirror: Essaying America, a collection of essays on American life and culture. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals, while his essays and commentary appear on Substack, Medium, and other publications.
Herzog wrote, produced, and directed the short film Flights, which screened at festivals in Los Angeles and the Hamptons and received several awards. His screenplays have earned recognition from Cinequest, the Austin Short Film Festival, and other competitions.
Beyond his creative work, Herzog has spent decades as an entrepreneur and executive in technology, energy, and healthcare, experiences that inform his interest in ambition, power, human relationships, and social change.
I’ve climbed to over 22,000 feet. I remember the first great bottle of wine I ever had (a ’64 Margaux), and many since.
I’ve been a CEO, COO, CMO, CFO, teacher, river runner, political consultant, actor, writer, and filmmaker. I’ve managed over $750 million in financings, for tech, digital, and creative companies. I close deals.
Somewhere along the way, I discovered that the worlds of business, politics, and storytelling have more in common than one might expect. Ambition, conflict, improbable characters, unexpected reversals—I’ve encountered them in all three.
Can’t say I planned it that way, but there it is.
— Robert, in his own words
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