Biography

  Judith Anne Barton, the author of  THE ANGEL CONNECTION is a novelist, playwright, journalist, actress, producer, educator and certified yoga teacher.

  Several years ago she re-located from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to focus on her lifelong passions: creativity and family. Her multi-faceted career, launched on the cusp of Feminism, found her competing in the male dominated world of television broadcast journalism and trying to raise two sons as a single mother. From singing waitress  balancing a tray and a song cue to high powered career woman trying to balance the demands of work and motherhood, Judi has developed a unique voice that speaks to the choices women make and the consequences of those choices.

  For more than a decade, Judi was an award-winning reporter, anchor, producer, writer, and show host at the NBC television affiliate in Philadelphia. Her credits include such programs as EYEWITNESS NEWS,  EVENING/P.M. MAGAZINE, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED,  THE MORNING SHOW, PEOPLE ARE TALKING,  GOOD MORNING NEW YORK and  one of the earliest feminist Public Affairs shows, FEELIN’ FREE. She subsequently wrote, produced and hosted video programs for Donald Trump, QVC, and various Arts and medical institutions. 

  Judi is the co-author of The Best Letter Book Ever, book and CD-ROM. She is a published poet.

  Judi has taught acting, playwriting, and on-camera technique, both privately and as a teaching artist for the Institute for the Arts in Education, a satellite program of The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. She has designed Arts seminars for teachers as well as students.  

  In the nineties, Judi moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania where she discovered her twin Muses: the magnificent countryside and the legacies of the artists who preceded her there. With her mentor, the late JP Miller, author of classic THE DAYS AND WINE AND ROSES, she began to focus on playwrighting and novel writing, and the story of The Angel Connection was born.  Currently she has completed four plays, four screenplays, a pilot, three novels, and a novella.

Her first play OPENING NIGHT received its World Premiere at Philadelphia’s Lantern Theatre Company, and was subsequently a finalist in the Sundance Film Lab competition

  Judi graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York, where she studied with teaching legends Sandy Meisner and William Esper. Since relocating to Los Angeles, she has appeared in such films as THE HOAX, BECAUSE I SAID SO, and ASSASSIN’S RUN. Her television appearances include GREY’S ANATOMY, THE GHOST WHISPERER, COLD CASE, MONK, DIRT, THE CAPE, IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA and several Hallmark movies, including ACES ‘EIGHTS and JACK’S FAMILY VACATION. Her most recent film, ADOPTING TERROR, opposite Sean Astin premiered on  LIFETIME.

  She has performed in regional theatre on both coasts. In Los Angeles she appeared as Nina in COLUMBUS DAY, and in Bucks County Pennsylvania, the musical, QUILTERS; as Pearl Buck in the one-woman show, ONE GREAT HEART, and numerous roles in the Philadelphia professional theatre community.

  Her follow up novella murder mystery called to HOW THE PROPERTY LIES. Judi considers herself a “Pennsylvania” writer, drawing on mystical bucolic Bucks County for inspiration

  Her sons, William Wheeler and Thomas Wheeler are screenwriters in Los Angeles. William is an international fellow/mentor for the Sundance Film Lab whose most recent film is THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST.  Thomas is the writer of Dreamworks Animation’s PUSS IN BOOTS, and is currently at work on PUSS IN BOOTS II.