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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!
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I was among 5 writers highlighted in the Paperpback LA 3 Issue Trilogy and did a reading from my article “Hey, Hey, They Wrote The Monkees!” which was reprinted in Paperback LA #3
It was a great night, with great writing and reading and with a full house of people.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.
Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.
Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.
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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:
The other thing that’s cool about her — well she’s written many books — but Kindred is my favorite. A little chat about that from last week. She wanted to talk about race and she wanted to figure out a way to do that. So she chose the time-travel story and she took a modern-day African-American woman who without explanation — sort of like Narnia where they stumble into a wardrobe and bam they’re in a kingdom — we don’t need to know the machinations of how the time travel works. We don’t need to put dials in a car and drive the DeLorean down the street. We just walk into a room and oh my god now we’re in pre Civil War south and she’s a woman of African descent and she’s got to deal with now I’m in a place where they’re slaves and now she ends up being on the plantation where her ancestors were held in slavery and she comes up with you know drama. You want the big choice, the big question. She discovers that the way she could get back to her own future is she has to save the life of the plantation owner who owns her family on time for him to rape her great-great grandmother or she won’t exist yeah. There’s there’s a moral decision you gotta make in your lives right? But that’s a really fascinating and of course it allows her to have a discussion about what we don’t talk about in classrooms about the reality of slavery right? So this is a really fascinating book. It’s a one-off book. That’s good. She’s got a lot of you know series books so you can get involved in her writing and be busy for a while. That’s a great book to start with though. So I think Octavia Butler is of good attention for us.
* 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!
Moderating panels at local film festivals is a good way to highlight the great work of mentors like Maria Escobedo and to meet new possible mentors for MFA program like Peruvian filmmaker Donna Bonilla Wheeler. Here we are chatting after a panel on how Writers Can avoid implicit bias in their work at the DTLA film Festival in Los Angeles.
Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?
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Transcript
The thing about TV is it comes into everybody’s house for free. Granted now we pay for cable but back then it was free. To see a movie with a new idea you had to pay money and not everybody could do that certainly not younger children. So these ideas are coming into homes where they can affect more people and I think Peter was very right about that. I love this. This is a shot of the entire cast and crew. So you can see the guys sitting in several places in front and then the gentleman to the left of the camera by two, holding the coffee cup, that’s James Frawley. He’s gonna win an Emmy for Best Directing in this first season. So this is an Emmy winning show not just Emmy nominated. It won as best comedy of the year and it won for Best Directing. James Frawley will grow up to direct The Muppet Movie and many many of the things. So he’s been involved in the business for a long time and this was his first directing job. So again quality people putting together a quality show. I think if the show had stayed on longer and we’d gotten more understanding of it, we’d be looking at — essentially this is The Big Bang Theory except they’re not for nerds they’re for rock and roll kids right but that’s what it’s all about.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.
Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.
Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.