Speaking – Page 49 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

04 Women Writers Matter from “When Women Wrote Hollywood”, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Cal State Fullerton [Video] (1 minute)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Transcript:

This is my philosophy. Writers matter, Women matter and women writers matter. That should be kind of obvious and these are all women you may or may not recognize but by the time I’m done today you will recognize them and hopefully be interested in going to see some of their work — much of which is available online or in Netflix somewhere. I think it’s really important to think about the messages of women writers put out in the world. I love this Twitter that came across just after Rey became the famous new Jedi. But it’s quite true, right? It makes a difference. There was a great story once where the last Shuttle pilot had been a female and the next one was going to be a female and it’s always the last pilot who speaks on Comm to the person taking off and it was two women talking to each other for the first time in NASA history and a woman who worked at NASA had asked her son who was about seven , ” Do you want to be an astronaut you grow up?” and he said, Oh no Mom. That’s a girl’s job.” Because that’s what he saw right? So it’s important what we see. Representation matters. So I think that’s really cool.

Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.

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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television: From Freelancing to Writers Rooms – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (52 Minutes)

There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television: From Freelancing to Writers Rooms – Dr. Rosanne Welch

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Thanks to meeting my friend and colleague Dr. Paolo Russo at our annual Screenwriting Research Network conferences, I was invited to spend a week at his university – Oxford Brookes – lecturing on the History of American Writers Rooms and giving notes on screenplay treatments written by his MFA candidates.

It was a wonderful experience to share ideas cross-culturally since I’ve studied and watched programming from the UK for years and their students have watched lots of American television programs.

We had the chance to compare development strategies from both countries and I met the other folks in Paolo’s film department who came from as far away as Canada and as near as Italy. And having been a lifelong viewer of Morse and Lewis, I enjoyed finally having time to walk through Oxford and see everything from the pubs where the Harry Potter actors hung out during filming and the quaint churchyard where C.S. Lewis is buried. I can’t wait to go back again for the 2020 SRN conference!

Quote: “I was a fan from the beginning at the age of six when the show debuted on NBC” from “Why The Monkees Matter” Book Signing – 9 in a series

“I was a fan from the beginning at the age of six when the show debuted on NBC and caused what I often teased was the first great choice of a childhood lived without benefit of DVR. Should I watch The Monkees or Gilligan’s Island? Both aired at the same non Bat-Time on the same non Bat-Channel. I used that question as the thesis to an essa when, many years later I applied to film school and I’m amazed at how it still resonates with others of my generation.

from How It All Began from Why The Monkees Matter Book Signing, Book Soup, Hollywood

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Watch this entire presentation – “Why The Monkees Matter” Book Signing

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

†

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.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

* 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

02 Science Fiction As A Place For Discussion from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

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:

I think what’s interesting about science fiction is it’s a place where writers go and where audiences go to discuss the issues of our current world in sort of a safer place because we’re having trouble discussing them maybe in the present. So if we think about the future and how we hope it’s gonna look and how we hope we’re gonna behave to each other that’s a place we can have those debates and then sort of bring them back into our regular life and that’s true of most writing. We sort of work out the world in writing so that’s why reading is so good for our brains because it relaxes us teaches us empathy. It makes us think about more complex thoughts then you know a quick Reddit post. Which is a nice piece of news very quickly but it’s not all the information that you need to have right? So that’s the goal for today. It’s just a look at some interesting writers. Summer is coming up. Perhaps you all might want to have a summer book to read right or perhaps a movie that you’re like “Wow I should know that movie. That’s really iconic and people reference it. it’s a popular culture sort of moment. I should know about that.” So hopefully, in the summer you have some time to pay attention. So I’ll give you some stuff to pay attention to.

* 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!

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03 Women Writers Get Lost In History from “When Women Wrote Hollywood”, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Cal State Fullerton

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

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Transcript:

We’re gonna talk a little bit about why women get lost behind in history and see if we can think about fixing that in our own work — our own writing — our own conversations. I’m also the book editor for The Journal of Screenwriting. So I do book reviews — I hire book review people for that. So that’s always something I’m interested in getting folks who want to do and I’m on the editorial staff of Written By magazine which is the magazine the Writers Guild so we decide who gets interviewed and every month it’s either a famous TV writer or a film writer and I think it’s a wonderful way to stay involved because if you have those people come into your class and the guest speaker so that’s all the stuff I do.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* 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

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Dr. Rosanne Welch Appears Twice at Denver Pop Culture Con, May 31, 2019 – June 2, 2019

I’m happy to announce that I will be appearing on two panels at next month’s Denver Pop Culture Con in Denver.

For the 1st session, I’ll be moderating a panel of contributors to When Women Wrote Hollywood covering female screenwriters of Hollywood’s early days.

For the 2nd session, I’ll be discussing the subjects of my first book, Why the Monkees Matter.

Hope to see you there!

DENVER POP CULTURE CON

Friday-Sunday May 31-June 2, 2019
Colorado Convention Center
Denver, Colorado

Saturday June 1, 2019 :: 12:30 pm to 1:20 pm

When Women Wrote Hollywood: A History of Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry
ROOM 504 – Reel Heroes (sm)
Dr. Rosanne Welch, Amy Banks, Mikayla Daniels, Toni Hull, Laura Kirk, Kelley Zinge

Did you know that in the early days of Hollywood there were more women writers than men? And they made more money than most men while essentially inventing the iconic stories that have filled our movie screens ever since? Many of them ran their own production companies but their names have been left out of the textbooks. Help us bring their names back into the conversation by joining Dr. Rosanne Welch as she moderates a panel of writers – Amy Banks, Mikayla Daniels, Toni Hull, Laura Kirk, Kelley Zinge – who researched the lives of these creative female writers you need to know.

Sunday June 2, 2019 :: 2:30 pm to 3:20 pm

Why the Monkees Matter – Even 50 Years Later
ROOM 504 – Reel Heroes
Dr. Rosanne Welch

Whether you’re a fan of The Monkees as a television show or a band – or both – come join Dr. Rosanne Welch as she discusses how they changed television by bringing new ideas about identity, celebrity and popular culture to the teenagers of their day – and all the generations that followed — all in the span of the 2 season run of their wildly influential program.

Denver Popular Culture Con Tickets

01 Introduction from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

All right everybody. Hello. How are you? Thank you for coming today. Hopefully you’ll find what I have to say interesting. Some of you are in my class so it kind of suits what we’re talking about. Some of you have wandered in from nowhere. So luckily you’ve seen your poster and that’s very nice of you. Our College does a lot of really cool things. I think it’s important to remember that it’s above and beyond just going to class. There’s a lot of stuff you can pick up from around here. We were talking about Earth Day before. See what’s going on. What suits you particularly. A lot of times when you’re going off to do — again — interviews or visiting with people — the fact that you did above and beyond — that you tried other things — that’s gonna make you look like an interesting, engaging person right? So so thank you for coming today. We’re going to be discussing the Sisterhood of Science Fiction. I’m basically going to go through a run of interesting female science fiction writers you may or may not have heard of and then some characters that are very iconic especially in American science fiction in film and television and kind of what they stood for what they said to us what we’ve learned from them.

* 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!

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Being my typically exuberant self via Instagram

Being my typically exuberant self

Before reading at Paperback LA #3 (“Hey Hey They Wrote The Monkees”) launch party

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See the entire collection of photos from the event

Editor Susan La Tempa hosted all the local contributors at the event space in the Helms Bakery district, which gave us a chance to check out that lovely landmark. Then I had the chance to meet Lisa See – author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of 4 generations of her Chinese-American family living in Los Angeles and running a factory, an antique shop and a restaurant popular with the Hollywood crowd of the 1930s and 40s. We had first heard of her book when Doug and I were docents at the Autry Western Heritage Museum in Griffith Park and they had a whole exhibit dedicated to telling the story of the book (which it turns out Lisa curated!) It was so popular an exhibit that it hung around long enough for Joseph to be born and to become old enough to play in the little mini restaurant they set up with pots and plates and menus. So it was wonderful to hear Lisa read an excerpt from the book and then to talk to her during the book signing segment of the afternoon.

02 My Writing and Books from “When Women Wrote Hollywood”, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Cal State Fullerton [Video] (1 minute, 7 secs)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

If you ever watched 90210 because he was the son of a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, so he grew up in Beverly Hills and he treated those characters like real people, not like stick figures and I think that’s what really came out. It doesn’t matter how rich you are if your mother’s on drugs. That’s a problem that many other kids could have a universal connection to so writing is all about that it’s about making universal connections. It’s about pulling out some raw emotions and I think that’s what real writers do. So that’s where I came from into a lot of writing as John said now. These are a bunch of books I have chapters in. I’m very into Doctor Who. I’ve gone to some conventions and some some conferences on that. I’ve got a piece in the American Civil War on film and TV on how women were portrayed in films taking place during the Civil War and then I have the books I have with me today. The Monkees, who I talked about last year. Again, sadly, the passing of Peter Tork last week makes a whole new interest in that subject and the book that I’m talking about today “When Women Wrote Hollywood” — which is a series of chapters on famous women from the silence into about the 40’s who wrote movies that we all kind of know and we should know their names.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* 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

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Females, fiction and uprising in the Poly Post, Cal Poly Pomona

Cal Poly Student journalist Daniela Avila did a great job summing up the points I made in my recent library lecture on my favorite female science fiction writers. — Rosanne

Education on the role of women in science fiction — which has been gravely overlooked — was brought by Rosanne Welch at Cal Poly Pomona’s University Library last Thursday, April 25.

Welch discussed several different women in this genre.

Not only in books and written works, but also in television and movies.

She was very passionate about the subject and the significance of women in the genre which many fail to acknowledge.

“It’s a place where audiences and writers go to discuss the issues of the world in a safe place,” Welch said, in regards to science fiction.

Welch began the lecture with the woman that started it all — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Shelley is responsible for writing the famous novel “Frankenstein.”

This was written in 1818; however, she asked that the book remained anonymous due to the reactions of a woman writing such a dark and challenging work. Her intentions were to sit back and wait for the book to be judged based off of merit not the author.

It wasn’t until 1823 that her name was placed on the cover.

Read Females, fiction and uprising by Daniela Avila in Poly Post