York College Alumnus, a Veteran TV Producer, Releases His First Novel
Brian Seidel ’99, a Communications major, has spent his career in the world of storytelling, first as a reality TV producer and now in his debut novel for 8- to 12-year-old middle-grade students, Captain Henry and the Planets Guard.
Brian Seidel ’99, didn’t know any space aliens growing up, but that didn’t stop him from
imagining them, and it didn’t stop him from writing about them in his first novel for middle
grade students, Captain Henry and the Planets Guard, which was released in November 2024.
As a kid in New Jersey, his world was filled with backyard adventures, fort-building, and epic
action-figure battles that played out for weeks.
“I always had some story in my head,” says the York College of Pennsylvania alumnus.
A start in reality television
After earning his bachelor’s degree, Seidel’s creative imagination led him into the field of reality television. He started as a production assistant on The Queen Latifah Show before landing gigs with Judge Judy, Chelsea Lately, Tanked, and numerous shows on HGTV and Magnolia Network. His career took him across the country, from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to Charlotte, North Carolina, producing reality TV hits and navigating the fast-moving entertainment world.
Amid the whirlwind of production schedules and on-set stress, a dream kept quietly whispering in his ear, the dream of being a writer.
“I think I always wanted to write,” he says, “but even when I went to Hollywood, there was a voice that said I wasn’t good enough to write.”
After his son was born in 2014, Seidel knew he needed a career that allowed him to have more consistent time with his family. The long, unpredictable hours of working in television weren’t sustainable for him in the long term. At the same time, he began thinking back to his childhood. He wanted to pass along his stories to the next generation.
Between shows during one slow season, he finally put pen to paper and wrote about a childhood memory of swinging on a rope swing.
‘Quiet that voice that tells you that you can’t’
That one story snowballed into many. Seidel began sending the stories to an old York College friend, Mike Buccialia ’01, who is a business mind-shift coach at Mindworx Collective.
“I started sending him chapters and his insight helped me quiet that inner voice,” Seidel says. What started as a collection of stories for his son slowly evolved into his first novel, Captain Henry and the Planets Guard, a thrilling space adventure about a boy and an alien as they navigate friendship, bravery, overcoming evil, and believing in oneself.
As he prepares for a book tour in March and works on his second novel, Seidel credits his time at York College for helping him gain the confidence to step into the world of television and the friendships that encouraged him to transition from executive producer to author. He hopes
Captain Henry and the Planets Guard, which is available for purchase on Amazon.com, is just the beginning of his writing career.
“Don’t be scared to leave what’s not working and quiet that voice that tells you that you can’t do something,” Seidel says. “If you take action, doors really do open up.”
Learn more about Brian Seidel and his work at briankseidel.com.
