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Category: Screenwriting
Dr. Rosanne Welch To Judge This Year’s Moonshot Initiative Film Challenge
Dr. Welch To Judge 2025 Moonshot Initiative Film Challenge
I’m proud to have been asked to serve as a judge for this year’s Moonshot Initiative Film Challenge, designed to help students “Make a short film in one weekend and meet women and gender-expansive people in every role of production”. It takes place in October 2025, in New York.
Moonshot provides cinema-quality equipment courtesy of their sponsors, production insurance, stipends to submit to film fests and more!
You do have to be a member to apply and membership costs $112 a year. If accepted, it is FREE to participate in the challenge. Applications will be open from August 1-31.
It’s my first time being invited to judge the writing in this challenge, and I’m looking forward to reading some innovative scripts that move me emotionally and have something to say about the world.
“Unapologetically Herself: Writing Bold and Complex Young Women” Panel at the Writers Guild Foundation – Friday, August 8, 2025, 7pm
Unapologetically Herself: Writing Bold and Complex Young Women
During every MFA Residency Workshop I moderate a panel of writers – often proudly including one of our MFA alums – and this August we’re doing it again. Join us on Friday, August 8, 2025 from 7:00 PM 8:30 PM at the Writers Guild Foundation (7000 West 3rd Street Los Angeles, CA, 90048) for:
Unapologetically Herself: Writing Bold and Complex Young Women
We’ll explore how writers develop these strong characters, how to approach sensitive scenes intentionally, and how they navigate nuances of character personalities, behaviors, and motivations.
Panelists include:
- Karen Joseph Adcock – Yellowjackets
- Beth Appel – The Sex Lives of College Girls
- Sahar Jahani – Life and Beth (MFA alum!)
- Autumn Joy Jimerson – Forever
- Dr. Rosanne Welch – Moderator/Executive Director, Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting
Get tickts for this WGA Panel Discussion
And if you’d like to see some of our previous WGA panels you can find them on our MFA Website
Daughter, Wife, Widow, Screenwriter: The Heroines’ Journey of Dorothy Davenport – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, June 2025
Lois Weber: More than a Writer-Director She’s the Auteur Activist of Early Cinema – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, April 2025
Her Career Outlasted the Hays Code: Kathryn Scola – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, March 2025
Friend and editor Anna Weinstein’s book on Shonda Rhimes make Bloomsbury’s Essential New Books list for film students
Congratulations to my friend and editor Anna Weinstein!
The first book in her “Screen Storytellers” series, which is on The Works of Shonda Rhimes is on Bloomsbury’s Essential New Books list for film students.
I’m proud to have a chapter in the book discussing the idea that while most people think Rhimes is ‘only’ a feminist, her writings have always expressed an even wider humanist philosophy.
I can only hope that my upcoming The Works of Susan Harris will make the same list. Look for it in late 2026.
Dr. Rosanne Welch Interview, Screenwriting Research Network Conversations [Video]
![Dr. Rosanne Welch Interview, Screenwriting Research Network Conversations [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/rmw-srn-interview-1-1200x632.png)
I sat down for an interview about my time as Chair of the Screenwriting Research Network during our last conference in Olumouc, Czech Republic, last September.
I had the chance to discuss the conference we held at Stephens College the year before, how we chose the theme, and the benefit of being a smaller group where real connections have been made. This is part of a series of oral histories on past created by the Executive Council which have morphed into these “Conversations”recorded by EC member Lucian Georgescu (with Camera and editing by Marius Donici).
You can see several other members interviewed on the SRN YouTube Channel as well.
![Dr. Rosanne Welch Interview, Screenwriting Research Network Conversations [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/rmw-srn-interview.png)
Julia Crawford Ivers: From Rich Widow to Writer-Director – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, February 2025
Born just 4 years after the end of the Civil War in Boonville, Missouri, the scripts Julia Crawford Ivers wrote (and sometimes directed) often tackled issues of prejudice. After the war, her family emigrated to Los Angeles. As with many female creatives in this era, Ivers used her screenplays to highlight women’s issues from forced marriage to domestic abuse to prejudice.
Read Julia Crawford Ivers: From Rich Widow to Writer-Director
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New Book: “Shaping Global Culture through Screen Writing: Women Who Write Our Worlds” Edited by Rose Farrell and Rosanne Welch – Available September 2025 [Books]
![New Book: "Shaping Global Culture through Screen Writing: Women Who Write Our Worlds" Edited by Rose Farrell and Rosanne Welch – Available September 2025 - [Books]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Final-Shaping-Global-Culture-through-Screen-Writing-chair-copy.jpg)
See more at Intellect Discover
Excited to announce that the book I co-edited with my Australian friend, and Screenwriting Research Network colleague, Rose Ferrell will be available in Sept. 2025. Shaping Global Cultures Through Screenwriting: Women Who Write Our Worlds is a collection of international writers focused on women and the power of their words to change their worlds.
You’ll learn about the importance of the female perspective in the animated Bluey, female rap artists in North-West Nigeria, the desire-driven filmmaking of Celine Sciamma, the queer utopias of Miranda July’s Kajillionaire, translating blindness and homelessness into video games, and the indigenous roots of Latin American women’s cinema – and so much more. We’re excited about spreading these stories and publishing many first time chapter authors.
I want to thank Rose Ferrell for taking this editing journey with me and doing most of the heavy-lifting. Watch out for more info on when the book is available for purchase – and remember asking your local or college library to order a copy is just as good as buying one yourself.