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  An independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote and directed Mommy, premiering on Lifetime in 1996, as well as a 1997 sequel, Mommy’s Day. The screenwriter of The Expert, a 1995 HBO World Premiere, he wrote and directed the innovative made-for-DVD feature, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2000). His latest indie feature, Shades of Noir (2004), is an anthology of his short films, including his award-winning documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane. A DVD boxed set of his films will appear in 2005.

  Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins; they frequently collaborate on fiction, sometimes under the shared byline “Barbara Allan.” Their son Nathan is majoring in computer science and Japanese at the University of Iowa in nearby Iowa City.