Women’s History Month 13: Harriet Jacobs

 

Women's History Month 13: Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Ann Jacobs was a fugitive slave and abolitionist whose 1861 autobiographical Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published under the name Linda Brent, provided American readers with a rare inside look at the physical and sexual abuse suffered by female slaves. Primarily focused on Jacobs’ journey to freedom and her struggles to obtain that same freedom for her children, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl details the structure of slavery from the rape of female slaves to the institution of the Fugitive Slave Law and its devastating effect on black families even in free states. Her work stands as crucial evidence against the horrors of American slavery.

Learn more about Harriet Jacobs


Learn about more Women In History with these encyclopedia from Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

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† Available from the LA Public Library

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Emma Jeszke – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Every Monday we will be profiling a member of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting 2020 graduating class. This exciting, fresh crop of writers are the future of the industry and are going on to do BIG things, so get to know them now! 

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Emma Jeszke

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Emma Jeszke

Emma Jeszke is a dramedy writer, with a focus on coming-of-age stories that challenge and expand typical narratives about girlhood, young adulthood, and motherhood. She has a special talent for keeping you laughing till you’re crying.

Her television pilot Postpartum, about the joys and struggles of being a new mom, was a top-ten finalist in the Women Writing Competition at Series Fest. She is the author of the feature screenplays Wildflower, a forbidden love story about a soldier and an antiwar activist set in 2004, and Bobbi Malone, which follows a thirty-something as she reconnects with her estranged grandmother through a theater troupe. She’s also the author of several stage plays, and the creator of the forthcoming web series Holly & Gem, about two sisters who reconnect after one escapes a cult.

Her plays have been performed regionally in places such as the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival and the Blank Theatre in Los Angeles. She is a book editor at Theatre Communications Group, the foremost publisher of theatrical literature, where she’s spent eight years working with world-renowned playwrights. She’s currently finishing her MFA in TV & Screenwriting at Stephens College.


Visit the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for more information.

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#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

02 Women and Horror Writing from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (45 seconds)

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02 Women and Horror Writing from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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In honor of Halloween – and in service to my teaching philosophy —

“Words Matter. Writers Matter. Women Writers Matter.”

I presented this holiday lecture “When Women Write Horror” on Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. Researching the many, many women who have written horror stories – in novels, films and television – brought new names to my attention who I am excited to start reading. I hope you will be, too!

Transcript:

The best horror — and I’m gonna come to some examples as we travel through — is stuff that involves social commentary along with the scare because that’s the stuff that sticks with us. So I think Mary is very important. I made a point to mention I think it’s useful we think about women writing. Back in the day, it wasn’t acceptable for women to READ novels because it would rot their brains. So they certainly couldn’t write them. So you’ll notice when the book was first came out there was no author on the book. Nobody bothered to wonder how come there’s no writer there. It was because she could not admit that she had written it and then when it came so ridiculously famous and so profitable then she was able to say “well I’m cool enough that’s fine I’ll take the ding for doing this,” right? So I think it’s really important to think about what women had to go through just to be writers right?


 

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Women’s History Month 12: Anita Loos

Women's History Month 12: Anita Loos

Anita Loos

Most famous for being the author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Anita Loos was also a prolific screenwriter, playwright, and memoirist, chronicling the early days of Hollywood.

Learn more about Anita Loos


Learn about more Women In History with these encyclopedia from Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Listen to the latest “How I Wrote That” Podcast with Screenwriter Julie Hébert from ‘American Crime’ and ‘Man in the High Castle’

Listen to the latest How I Wrote That Podcast with Tera Hernandez of The Big Bang Theory [Audio]

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Julie Hébert started her creative life as a theater director and playwright (Ruby’s Bucket of Blood).  She’s written and directed for the Magic Theater, Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens, LaMaMa, The Women’s Project, Cornerstone and many more.  Her plays were honored twice with the Pen Award for Drama. Moving into television, Julie has written and directed for some of the most respected shows in television including American Crime, The Good Wife, Boss, Numb3rs and The West Wing. Her films have been praised as “intriguingly complex” (Variety) and “pulsing with veracity” (LA Times), with “a raw power that is impossible to dismiss” (Roger Ebert).  She blogs occasionally at JulieHébert.com.

“I honor the depth inside and the stories that really want to be told because often in television you can get away with topline chatter, but to really hit on something that has meaning for you, that will have meaning for someone hearing the story, it has to come from a deeper place.” -Julie Hébert

Presented by Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting


Visit the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for more information.

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#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Women’s History Month 11: Myra Bradwell

Women's History Month 11: Myra Bradwell

Myra Bradwell

Bradwell v. Illinois (1873) was a landmark Supreme Court case that declared women could not be lawyers. Myra Colby Bradwell, represented in court by Matthew Hale Carpenter, sued the state of Illinois for her right to practice law after she graduated from law school in St. Louis. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, Bradwell continued to advocate women’s rights through litigation including lobbying for the right to pursue professional occupations and in support of the suffragist movement.

Learn more about Myra Bradwell


Learn about more Women In History with these encyclopedia from Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

My Events Cancelled Due To COVID19 Concerns

Due to the COVID19 crisis, the following personal events and events the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting were planning to attend and present athave been cancelled. I will update this list as necessary. We’ll be announcing online events to be held during this time. — Rosanne

CANCELLED

Bad Ass Movie Motherhood: From Leia to Ripley and Back Again

Bad Ass Movie Motherhood: From Leia to Ripley and Back Again
March 24, 2020 — Cal Poly Pomona University Library

CANCELLED

Scms

Society For Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Conference
April 1-5, 2020 — Denver, Colorado

CANCELLED

Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Conference with NAB

Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Conference with NAB
April 18-22, 2020 — Las Vegas, Nevada

From The Journal Of Screenwriting V1 Issue 1: Everybody’s a Writer Theorizing screenwriting as creative labour by Bridget Conor

Highlighting the articles in the past editions of the Journal of Screenwriting, of which I am the Book Reviews Editor. Hopefully these abstracts will entice you to did a little deeper into the history and future of screenwriting. — Rosanne


Everybody’s a Writer Theorizing screenwriting as creative labour by Bridget Conor

This paper offers a theoretical agenda for a labourist analysis of screenwriting, and critically evaluates the marginal status of screenwriting within film production systems. On the one hand, screenwriting offers an exemplary case study of creative work in post-modernized film production industries, work characterized by freelancing and multivalent working patterns, insecurity and hierarchization. Investigating screenwriting as creative labour also offers unique insights into an intensely industrial vocation; this requires a highly particular theorization of the contexts and conditions of writers’ working lives.This paper draws on sociological analyses of creative production and utilizes a Foucauldian understanding of technologies of the self as this concept has been applied in the analysis of creative labour. This approach enables a critical examination of particular aspects of screenwriting labour, including the rigidity of the industrial screenplay form and its pedagogical frameworks, the standardized mechanisms of control over screenwriting labour (such as inequitable collaboration and practices of multiple authorship), and the heady mix of both creative fulfilment and punishment which characterizes this form of work.


The Journal of Screenwriting is an international double-blind peer-reviewed journal that is published three times a year. The journal highlights current academic and professional thinking about the screenplay and intends to promote, stimulate and bring together current research and contemporary debates around the screenplay whilst encouraging groundbreaking research in an international arena. The journal is discursive, critical, rigorous and engages with issues in a dynamic and developing field, linking academic theory to screenwriting practice. 

Get your copy and subscription to the Journal of Screenwriting Today!


Screenwriting Research Network Conference 2020

Join me at the Screenwriting Research Network’s Annual Conference in Oxford, UK



* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

Women’s History Month 10: Jacqueline Cochran

Women's History Month 10: Jacqueline Cochran

Jacqueline Cochran

The first woman to break the sound barrier and the director of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS), Cochran was born near Muscogee, Florida, and orphaned as an infant. Raised in northern Florida by a poverty-stricken foster family of migrant sawmill workers, she went to work in the mills early in life.

Learn more about Jacqueline Cochran


Learn about more Women In History with these encyclopedia from Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

A Photographic February for Stephens MFA in TV and Screenwriting

February was a month of sharing the marvelous photos from all the guest lectures who graced the January Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting workshop with their talent and inspiration… (plus a quick shot of my upcoming book on Films of the Civil War).

February at Stephens MFA in TV and Screenwriting


Visit the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

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#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting