On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
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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Write Like a Mother: A Conversation on TV Writing and Motherhood
When: Friday, August 9, 2019 at 7:30 PM – 9 PM
Where: Writers Guild Foundation, 7000 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, California 90048
Tickets $25/$20 at wgfoundation.org
Write Like a Mother: A Conversation on TV Writing and Motherhood
We are teaming up once again with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for a mother of a panel.
On this special evening, we gather a panel of TV writers and producers for a discussion about their experiences writing and developing nuanced portrayals of motherhood while also balancing duties as working moms themselves.
Panelists
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch
Learn more about the Stephens College Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting
The lovely thing about putting writing out into the world is that sometimes you receive calls or emails from editors who stumbled upon your work and want to reprint it in their own anthologies.
Such a lovely experience happened to me recently when Susan La Tempa, editor of Paperback LA – a series of 3 anthology collections of writings about Los Angeles across the decades, contacted me. She had read my article on the wild and crazy careers of the former writers of The Monkees and wanted to add it to her 3rd collection.
Happily, I received my contributor copy in the mail today and it looks great. The fact that my name appears in a Table of Contents along with great California writers like Casey Williams, Lisa See, Harry Shearer and Jonathon Gold (the only Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer) is… amazing to me.
Can’t wait for the publication launch party, signing and reception Sunday May 5, 2019 (4-6 p.m) at the Helms Design Center. Free and open to the public!
Hope to see you there!
Secrets. Sigalerts. Ravines. Records.
In Paperback L.A., A Casual Anthology Book 3, our contributors deftly command fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, magazine writing, memoir and other forms to conjure up visions of a Beverly Hills Wonderbread factory, the founding of the first sustained gay rights organization in the country, early 20th-century wagon-train settlers in Dodger Stadium area, a late 20th-century DTLA traffic tie-up that becomes a kind of symphony, a humorous 1940s novelty song whose refrain buoyed civil rights activists, the 1990s outrigger-team apprenticeship of a Tongva youth―and more. Plus, photo essays on “Motion and Stasis,” “Hometown Gold,” “The Right Notes,” and “Nowhere.”
When Women Wrote Hollywood – 36 in a series – Joan Harrison
Born in Guildford, Surrey, Harrison studied at St Hugh’s College, Oxford and reviewed films for the student newspaper. She also studied at the Sorbonne. In 1933, she became Alfred Hitchcock’s secretary. Eventually she began reading books and scripts for him and became one of Hitchcock’s most trusted associates. Harrison appears in a scene in Hitchcock’s original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), eating dinner with Peter Lorre’s character. She was among the screenwriters for the film Jamaica Inn (1939) based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier.
When Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in March 1939 to begin his contract with David O. Selznick to direct films, Harrison went with him as an assistant and writer.[1] She continued contributing to the screenplays for Hitchcock’s films Rebecca (1940), also adapted from a du Maurier novel, Foreign Correspondent(1940), Suspicion (1941), and Saboteur (1942). She was also credited as one of the screenwriters for Dark Waters (1944). — Wikipedia
More about Joan Harrison
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
When Women Wrote Hollywood is a collection of 23 essays focused on the lives of female screenwriters of Golden Age Hollywood.
Celebrate the work of these female screenwriters by meeting the authors!
Buy the book, listen to the authors share about their subjects, and get your book signed!
* Citizen Jane Film Festival Badge Not Required – This is a FREE Event!
Join the “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Facebook Event
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
Pictured: Gail Parent, Njeri Brown, Rosanne Welch, Natasha Leggero, Riki Lindhome, Christine Zander and Ken Lazebnik pose before the Women Comedy Writers Panel
I had a great time moderating another panel for the WGA Foundation and enjoyed meeting all these female comedy writers. We talked about the power of comedy to force us to face the issues of our day and the pure fun of finding your place in a writers room.
I took the opportunity to ask Gail Parent (of The Carol Burnett Show, and The Golden Girls) to sign my used copy of her novel Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York so now I have another book to add to my autographed shelf!
It was wonderful to feel the reverence in the room whenever she spoke – coming from the audience as well as the panel. That kind of reverence for those who came before us is usually reserved for men, which made experiencing it so much more powerful.
I am very excited to be moderating another panel at the Writers Guild Foundation on…
“It’s a Funny Story: A Conversation with Women TV Comedy Writers” on Friday, August 10, 2018
with these fascinating female writer-creator-artists:
This is going to be FUN! Hope you can join us!
From the Writers Guild Foundation
“We could all use a good laugh. Fortunately, we can all unwind with an abundance of outstanding television comedy shows that are available at the click of a button. But comedy isn’t just for the jokes anymore: an increasing number of shows tackle universal problems and surprisingly navigate us through our challenging world. And as writers rooms continue investing in diverse talent, the voices you hear from your television take on fresh perspectives.
Join The Writers Guild Foundation in partnership with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for a discussion surrounding how women television comedy writers got their start, how they use their experiences to inform their work, and the challenges they face in the writers room.”
A fun site to check out is the Writers Guild Foundation Blog where they highlight some of the wonderful scripts in their catalog.
The link below takes you to a fun post about writers who created great chemistry on the page where the blogger excerpts a few pages from 1949’s Adams’s Rib, written by husband-and-wife writing team Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.
Gorden and Kanin appear in an essay of mine, published in our new book, When Women Wrote Hollywood.
…And after that great post, check out this one, on Norma Rae.
This Week’s Script Cavalcade: Adam’s Rib from the Writers Guild Foundation Blog
Lauren Bacall gives Humphrey Bogart some side eye and he grins. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryanargue about orgasms at Katz’s deli. Yammering Paul Newman talks a mostly silent Robert Redford’s ear off in the wild west in the late 1800s. Basically, two characters come together as partners on screen and if we’re lucky, their interactions and friction produce this happy spellbinding effect.
We call it chemistry, but often in the business of creating movies and television we treat it like it’s magic… as if it’s elusive and very difficult to conjure and we shouldn’t talk about it too loudly because we don’t want to squelch the enchantment.
Here’s a question for you.
What if we treated chemistry as what it is?
That is to say, a science.
Click for larger images
When Women Wrote Hollywood: Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry
I’m so excited to see that we’re now publishing on this collection of essays written by the original cohort of students in our first Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting which I edited and for which author Cari Beauchamp wrote a wonderful forward covering the life and influence of Frances Marion.
These 23 essays cover a range of female screenwriters from the early years of film through the 1940s, women whose work helped create the unforgettable stories and characters beloved generations of audiences but whose names have been left out of most film histories. Not this one. This collection is dedicated to those women and written by a group of women grateful to stand on the shoulders of those who came before – as a beacon to those who will come after.
Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition
Use “When Women Wrote Hollywood” in your classroom! — Contact McFarland directly for library and academic purchases.
Table Of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword: Finding Frances Marion
Cari Beauchamp
Introduction
Rosanne Welch 5
Adela Rogers St. Johns: Survival Of The Feisty
Sarah Amble Whorton
Jeanie Macpherson: A Life Unknown
Amelia Phillips
Anita Loos: A Girl Like Her
Toni Anita Hull
The Nature And Genius Of Alice Guy Blaché
Khanisha Foster
“You’d Better Learn To Hold Your Liquor”: Bess Meredyth And A Career In Early Hollywood
Sydney Haven
The Best Revenge Is Outliving Them All: The Life And Heartbreak Of Frederica Sagor Maas
Mikayla Daniels
Silent Screenwriter, Producer And Director: Marion Fairfax
Sarah Phillips
Smart Girl In Charge: Eve Unsell
Laura Kirk
The Glorious Ms. Glyn
Amy L. Banks
Fearless And Fierce: June Mathis
Lauren Elizabeth Smith
Writing Around Lois Weber
Chase Thompson
Gene Gauntier: Ascending By Drowning
Yasser Omar Shahin
Lorna Moon: A Woman Of A Certain Influence
Elizabeth Dwyer Sandlin
Clara Beranger: The Unseen Laborer
Amanda R. Stockwell
Ida May Park: Prolific Pioneer
Jackie Perez
Frances Goodrich And Albert Hackett: The Most Beloved Couple In Hollywood
Julie Berkobien
In Defense Of Lillian Hellman
Kelley C. Zinge
The Intimately Unknowable Dorothy Parker: A Study Of Her Life And Art
Elizabeth Dwyer Sandlin
Joan Harrison: Redefining Femininity In Film Noir And Hollywood
Chelsea Andes
The Six Degrees Of Sarah Y. Mason And Victor Heerman
Pamela L. Scott
Zoë Akins: A Quiet Rebellion
Sarah Amble Whorton
Marriage Of Words: Bella And Sam Spewack
Laura Kirk
The Forgettable Ms. Murfin
Amy L. Banks
A Team In Passionate Action: Ruth Gordon And Garson Kanin
Rosanne Welch
About The Contributors
Students from @tennstateu and @uofmichigan came to our campus as part of a week-long industry immersion course. These students are pursuing careers in film and TV production, and the Television Academy Foundation was happy to connect them to professionals in their field!
The Panelists:
Dr. Rosanne Welch,Tony Carey (The Sopranos, The Riches, Just Shoot Me), Tiffany Boone (The Chi, The Following, Beautiful Creatures) and Chad L. Coleman (The Wire, Walking Dead, The Expanse) as part of the Television Academy’s Visiting Professionals Program.
More photos coming soon!
@tiffmonet, Performer
@chadlcoleman, Performer
@drrosannewelch, Writer
@tonycarey68, Production Manager
and Follow