Hoyt R. Hilsman is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright and critic, and was recently a candidate for Congress in California. He is a director at the Hope Street Group, a bipartisan think tank whose members are committed to the equality of opportunity and economic growth.Hoyt Hilsman was raised in Washington, D.C., where his father served as Assistant Secretary of State in the administration of President Kennedy. Hilsman attended Columbia University and then went on to Columbia Law School.After finishing law school, Hilsman began working at the Federal Legal Services Program with the poor, unemployed and disabled at a state prison. He has been a regular theater and television critic for Daily Variety and a regular contributor to national newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and many others. He recently completed a novel, a political thriller set in the Middle East.