When you watch the credits of your favorite television shows go by, do you know the difference between a Staff Writer, a Story Editor, or a Supervising Producer?
If not, we wish you could’ve been with us on our first full day of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting workshop with the Class of 2021. Valerie Woods, mentor and Co-Executive Producer of Queen Sugar, gave a talk explaining exactly that.
Glyn’s experiences as an English barrister and landowner’s (Mrs. Clayton Louis Glyn) wife, I believe, form the basis of much of her work. The nuances of high society and high language associated with a life of pleasure and wealth are a recurrent theme through her available works.
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This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
Jumping into the 1960s thank you very much which is sad to go that far but what’s going on is we have to think about how women are being presented in the purchasing public, right? So when we come over here this woman is named Alice Sheldon. First of all, she doesn’t look like a science fiction writer because we think that they’re all dudes. She has the little pearl thing going on which is kind of cute. She couldn’t get her novels published under her own name. So she went by the name of James Tiptree jr. and James wrote a whole lot of books that were big bestsellers and then eventually, almost 20 years later, Alice was like “No, the next book is going out of my name right, but it had to say formerly known as James Tiptree Jr. to make sure that her fans would travel over. I Know is that silly? It’s silly but it is a habit we are still in.
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Wow – these pictures show my first lecture with our first Stephens MFA cohort – who all became contributors to our first book!
Wonderful memories and a wonderful foundation on which to build the program as tonight we welcome the 5th cohort – the MFA candidates of the Class of 2021! — Rosanne
During these formative years, women dominated the film industry. By studying Unsell’s career one can gain perspective of how women navigated a rapidly changing field due to evolving formats and distribution comparable to today’s demand for content due to multiple platform engagement by audiences.Only by direct confrontation and examination of the business of film armed with the knowledge of history can women take charge again.
* 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
This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
This lady is Virginia Woolf. Most people think of Virginia Woolf as writing those sort of lovey-dovey, Jane Austen-y kind of things or some you know a little mystery kind of stuff but she in fact wrote a novel we consider a piece of science fiction. It’s Orlando, which is not the biography of Orlando Bloom but in fact the story of a man born during the first Queen Elizabeth’s reign who regenerates into a woman and lives for 300 years which sounds a lot to be like Doctor Who which is my other big favorite thing in the world. So there’s Virginia Woolf right but she’s already known and so she can dabble in this other genre and it’s okay because people have paid more money for her other stuff. That’s all drawing-room stuff. So we’re moving through the world but not as many women as I’d like to see.
* 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!
This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne
Transcript:
…and the sad thing is — so she invented a whole genre. A whole genre. She invents it. We’re not going to see another female writer of science fiction for a while. Right? We’re not going to see that. Now a lot of what she came through — this is her mother — Mary Wollenstonecraft — and her mother was a famous feminist in England at this time. Right? So a lot of her ideas are coming from her mother’s writing. She didn’t know her mother because her mother died when she was very, very young. So she never had an actual relationship, but she wanted so desperately to live up to this famous women and how often did that happen back in the day. Usually, it’s men who have to live up to their rich and famous fathers. Here’s a woman who had to live up to something that her mother had accomplished. Right? So she’s got a lot of those themes again running through that. Right? And likewise, this is a picture of her mother. Which is just kind of fun from back in the day.
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At first I was puzzled by the certificate-sized envelope that appeared in the mail the other day. It came from the alma mater of my first college degree – Bowling Green State University. I couldn’t imagine what they had to send me after all these years. Then my son opened it and said, “It’s an award for something.”
Turns out it is the certificate commemorating the previously announced fact that When Women Wrote Hollywood was this year’s runner up for the Susan Koppelman Award, “given to the best anthology, multi-authored, or edited book in feminist studies in popular and American culture” by The Popular Culture Association. And then I remembered that my alma mater is the home of The Popular Culture Association. 🙂 What a nice surprise on all counts.
* 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
Marion Fairfax, while almost entirely unknown today, is an everywoman example of the plight of female screenwriters of the silent era. From the origins of her career through her mysterious disappearance from the Hollywood scene after the advent of talkies, there is little information available on her work as an actress, playwright and screenwriter and the information that is available is not consistently correct.
Silent Screenwriter, Producer and Director: Marion Fairfax by Sarah Phillips
* 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
Learn more about the American Revolution through the eyes of an important, Italian Immigrant, Filippo Mazzei. Read his story today!
“Still interested in philosophy, Filippo and his family actively involved themselves with new ideas in horticulture all his life. He was able to afford the upkeep of his homes due to a pension from Tsar Alexander of Russia who took over all Poland’s debts when it was dissolved in 1802. Though he never returned to his beloved Colle, he continued corresponding with his friends in the United States all his life, with Jefferson being the most proficient writer.”