Graduate school "wasn't like New College had been," adds Flint, who had transferred to the Florida college after two years at City College of New York. "There were many graduate students who didn't know how to be in small seminars and pick the professor's brain, or to be involved in give-and-take discussions."
Shortly after finishing a master of fine arts degree at the University of California-Davis in 1987, Flint began a 10-week, unpaid internship at a television production company in Los Angeles.
"I had grown up writing plays and poetry and was very dedicated to being in the theater," Flint says "but I needed a break from academia. My husband [Steve Jones] and son [Sam] and I thought, ‘Let's go to Los Angeles for a year. I can pursue writing for films and TV. I won't like it, but I will have tried it. And then I can figure out which campus I'm going to live on and write plays.'"
Flint interned at a production company headed by John Sacret Young, who was writing and researching a new television show. The show, set in an U.S. Army evac hospital and R&R center in Vietnam, was China Beach.
As part of her internship, Flint interviewed women who had been to Vietnam during the war, many of whom had never told their stories. Flint shined in this assignment, and quickly became a writer for the hit ABC show that eventually received 25 Emmy nominations.
Her first series "will always hold a special place in my heart," she reflects. "I was in a good place at a good time," said Flint. "Within a year of grad school, I had written my first script without ever having to go through the odious steps of writing on speculation. The show lasted three more seasons, until 1991, and by the time it ended I was a producer."
