On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
A field trip to the writers room of The Simpsons served as yesterday’s highlight for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Class of 2021.
Thanks to producer/writer Rob Lazebnik for showing our students around and explaining what makes a good Simpsons script – a story that involves the whole family, which is hard to come by after being on the air so many wonderful years…
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Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!
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June Mathis, one of the most prolific screenwriters of the Silent Era, not only wrote cinema, she lived it. Mathis traumatically passed away at the young age of 40 in the same place she began her career as an entertainer, the stage. The New York Times reported her dramatic demise in a front-page headline: “June Mathis Heart Victim” after Mathis died suddenly of a heart attack while attending a play at a New York theatre. Mathis lived out what cinephile critics would later coin “cinema 360”.
Fearless and Fierce: June Mathis
by Lauren E. Smith
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Last night the Class of 2021 shared a treat – a visit by alum Sahar Jahani (Class of 2018)
Since graduation she has written episodes for Ramy on Hulu and landed on the staff of season 4 of 13 Reasons Why, while also adapting a YA novel into a film.
She credited the spec script she wrote under the mentorship of Jon Vandergriff for helping open doors.
Thanks, Sahar, for sharing your journey with us!
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How much would you love to learn about the writing of an iconic episode of “Sex and the City”?
The Class of 2021 was treated to just that when guest Cindy Chupack, who has won two Emmys and three Golden Globes as a TV writer/producer, was interviewed in front of our students for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting program’s “How I Wrote That” podcast, hosted by Khanisha Foster. (Episode coming soon!)
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![12 Male Pseudonyms from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction - Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (42 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/scifi-rmw-cpp-12.jpeg)
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:
Now most of you I imagine in your in your younger years read Harry Potter which is written by JK Rowling because the publishers didn’t want or didn’t assume that boys would read a book written by Joanna. We’re not gonna read books written by women. My favorite book as a kid, which is still quite popular, The Outsiders is written by SE Hinton. Susan Elizabeth Hinton and nobody believed that boys would read a book about gangs written by a girl. Even though she lived with those kids and that was her childhood. She understood those kids obviously so well but yeah so we still do that to women, right? The best-selling book really of the last generation had to be written by someone with initials.
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Can you name the first woman to win two Oscars for her writing?
The students of the newest cohort of our Stephens College MFA know the answer – Frances Marion – because the highlight of Day 2 of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting workshop August Workshop was a visit by Cari Beauchamp, who wrote Marion’s biography: “Without Lying Down” and graciously contributed the Forward to “When Women Wrote Hollywood”.
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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.
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Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!
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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.
The Glorious Ms. Glyn
by Amy Banks
Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon
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Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition
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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
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Watch this entire presentation
![11 Alice Sheldon from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (51 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/scifi-rmw-cpp-11.jpeg)
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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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
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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
