All of us at The Story Spot wish you the very best of holidays, whichever you celebrate, and a prosperous and prolific new year. Let’s make 2010 the best year yet for all our writing projects.
Sarah Dodd
Sara St. Onge
Leonard Chang
Jeff Renfroe
and me, Diane J. Wright
Buy books, dvds, and movie tickets to support your art. Encourage your friends to do the same.
Happy 2010!
Susan Salter Reynolds on Fiction: The Antidote
December 22, 2009
A recent piece in the Los Angeles Times by staff writer Susan Salter Reynolds offers writers and readers a reminder of the transcendence of the written word in the Age of Distraction.
A few choice quotes:
[L]iterature has a big head start when it comes to helping us live our lives. On the world map literature would be Europe and the Internet, America. Escaping is one thing — science fiction, romance novels and nonfiction make excellent magic carpets — but for turning and facing, there’s nothing like good old literary fiction.
In order to be truly useful, fiction has to have a certain psychological density and depth. And as much as authors like to deny it, much of that depth comes from the autobiographical component of all fiction.
[A]uthors have to be particularly conscious. And so do readers… If we become too depleted by, say, the pace of life, the bombarding of information or our disconnection from the natural world; too emptied out, too dependent on external stimuli, we run the risk of being lousy writers and lousy readers.
Discuss.
“Cutting through the din of the dotcom age: The real battle was waged with the Internet.” by Susan Salter Reynolds via the Los Angeles Times online edition, December 20, 2009.
Breaking It Down: Improving Your Scripts
December 15, 2009
So you wanna write movies. I hear you. You’re new to the game; you’ve seen every film there ever was, including this one; and you’ve vowed not to rest until your better mousetrap is up on the silver screen. Fantastic and congratulations — you’ve just pledged yourself to some good, long hours spent with pad and paper, breaking down your favorite films.
What’s this, you ask? You can recite dialogue from His Girl Friday, Airplane, AND Solaris and still that’s not enough? Don’t try to weasel out of this. As your momma always said (or the momma in one of those dripping Southern dramas always says), “you gotta finish what you started, honey.” You want to write movies, watching and reading isn’t enough. You have to break them down.
The 2009 Black List: The Best Scripts You May Never Read
December 11, 2009
Since in 2004, film execs all over town have offered their picks of the best screenplays that came across their desks “that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2009 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year.” It’s called The Black List and it is a kind of honor, we believe, to be included in this roster of faves. It means the work has been appreciated by those in the know and is a hot property yet it may not fit the year’s production slate, budget constraints, or whatever. For each screenwriter, frustrating as the list may be, that’s still gotta feel great.
Kudos are in order for our good friends screenwriter Nissar Modi and writer/director Pall Grimsson whose screenplay “Z FOR ZACHARIAH” is much-loved here in the land of golden dreams and silver screens. Whether (and when) we’ll see “Z” in theatres is up the the one exec out there who will fund it and add it to his or her development slate. If you want to read it, keep watch on some of our favorite script sites (listed in the sidebar) but these closely held gems might be tough to find…until they’re produced, that is. Good thing you never know who gets their hands on what around here.
“Z FOR ZACHARIAH“
Logline: “A sixteen-year-old girl named Ann Burden survives a nuclear war in a small American town.”
Agent: Creative Artists Agency – Jay Baker, Josh Krauss
Manager: Energy Entertainment – Angelina Chen, Brooklyn Weaver
Zik Zak Filmworks producing.
Based upon the novel “Z for Zachariah” by Robert C. O’Brien.
The Black List 2009: Full Roster by Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood.
Diane J. Wright reads at Rhapsodomancy Hollywood
December 10, 2009
I am honoured to have been asked to be a part of Wendy C. Ortiz and Andrea Quaid’s five-year literary triumph, the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series. If you happen to be in Los Angeles in December, come relax to some original contemporary fiction, a few inventive cocktails, and good company.
Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, December 13th, 2009:SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK
STEVE ABEE
DIANE J. WRIGHT
MEEHAN RASCHSunday, December 13, 2009
Doors open at 7:00 – Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
Proceeds will benefit The Bridge Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.
The Rhapsodomancy Reading Series at The Good Luck Bar, Hollywood