Writing – Page 80 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

09 Important Women Screenwriters Today from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (58 seconds)

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

Transcript:

Next, I don’t know most important , I don’t how I ordered these except they came to this order but Callie Khouri — anyone that can name the movie that she’s famous for? (Audience: Thelma & Louise) Thelma & Louise! Thank you. Thank Goodness. Thelma & Louise! An amazing film, right, that is still being talked about and debated in women’s studies, in Cinema Studies. Do we like the ending Don’t we like the ending? Is it how it could have ended? I think that’s pretty brilliant. Susannah Grant is probably not a name you recognize off the top of your head but you’ve seen these movies. Erin Brockovich is a huge film, right? Charlette’s Web – she has a lot of early kids work which is adorable. And Pocahontas, which is a very very famous Disney film so Suzanne has been one of our newer people and then as you recognized, Diablo Cody, right? Diablo Cody showed up doing Juno and then she did the United States of Tara with Spielberg on television. She’s moving and grooving through town so we’ll see what her next project is but she won an Oscar for Juno. That was her first outing as a screenwriter.

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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Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 33 in a series – Alice Guy Blaché and Gaumont

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Get “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

Sixty-three of the movies that Alice Guy Blaché made while working for Gaumont are collected on the DVD Gaumont Treasures. Disk 1 is dedicated entirely to Blaché. While just a drop in the bucket of the work she did when she was there, it is a fascinating exploration of how quickly her work and voice grew.

The Nature and Genius of Alice Guy Blaché
by Khanisha Foster

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* 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

06 A Nameless Author from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (52 seconds)

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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:

(Audience Question) I’m really curious of how she felt then if she had a miscarriage at the time and she read books. Welch: That’s a fascinating point of view. Sadly or not sadly– interestingly — rich women did engage in the art of reading. So it’s interesting how we like to tell poor women how to behave. Rich women can do whatever they please right? So he’s acceptable in her world because you were supposed to read things and be a good reader so you could teach your children — your sons — to be good leaders in the world. So it was acceptable — that’s an excellent question though that’s like whoa. That’s a critical thinking kind of question going on right there because you’re right and but they felt that it was not proper to put out the novel with her name on it. So they didn’t right? In 1818, it doesn’t say Mary Shelley’s just here’s a book. Read it if you want to. Whatever. You can’t even tell from the cover — you’re right — what it’s about right?

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Italian Stories Day Los Angeles 2019

I was pleased to be asked to attend the first Italian Stories Day hosted by the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers and the Istituto Luce Cinecittà and Italian Audiovisual Producers Association at Mr. C in Beverly Hills. The three groups share the mission of helping more Italian authors see their work produced for the international film and television markets.

I had the pleasure of hearing about new books that we Americans will be able to read once their English translations are complete (within the next year) from authors like Tiziana Triana, author of Luna Nera – Le Città Perdute (Vol I) (Black Moon – The Lost Cities, Vol 1) which deals with witch hunters of 17th century Italy and how that affected women who yearned to gather knowledge; Stefania Auci, a Sicilian teacher and author of the historical novel Florence, published in 2015 by Baldini e Castoldi; and Edoardo Albinati, author of La Scuola Cattolica (The Catholic School).

I also had the chance to reconnect with Leonilde Callocchia, the Attaché at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura who hosted our Mentoris Book Launch last year, and a few producers I was able to invite to come to our Stephens College MFA workshops this August while we all munched on some marvelous brunch.

The Mentoris Project Book Trailer Featuring…ME!

Check out the new book trailer for the Mentoris series of novels on lives of influential Italian and Italian Americans that Douglas and I produced for the publisher. I wrote (and recorded) the narration and Douglas did all the production and editing. On the main page the trailer appears below the fold, as it were — MentrorisProject.org.

All the Mentoris authors are proud of the work we’re doing in telling the stories of the men and women who mentored western civilization. From Cicero to Mancini (with my books on Filippo Mazzei and Giuseppe Garibaldi somewhere in the midst!). If you need a good summer read, here’s a set of books to pick from – they come in paperback or ebook form. It would be deeply appreciated if you bought a book – and shared the trailer on your socials!

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Visit the Mentoris Project for more!

Books from the Mentoris Project

Want to use these books in your classroom? Contact the Mentoris Project!`

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Learn about “America’s Forgotten Founding Father” This Independence Day! – 2 FREE Chapters

Most Americans are familiar with the cast of the American Revolution — John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock. Some learned these names from history books, others from the fabulous musical 1776. Then came Hamilton and now Alexander Hamilton’s name will always be added to that list. But there was yet another man who did as much as all the others combined — and whose name has been lost. Until now.

Filippo Mazzei immigrated from Italy to England, where he met Benjamin Franklin over the purchase of an authentic Franklin stove. That chance encounter led Mazzei to the colonies. Intending to purchase a plantation in the southern part of Virginia for the cultivation of a vineyard, plans changed when his traveling party stopped for dinner at Monticello and he met Thomas Jefferson. Soon, Mazzei was buying the plantation next door and agitating for American freedom through the writing of pamphlets sympathetic to the colonists who wanted to break away from England. Along with his other soon-to-be-famous neighbors – James Madison and James Monroe – Mazzei joined the local militia by day and joined Jefferson at night to write essays advocating for the break away from England.

Among his achievements Mazzei is now credited with coining the phrase “All Men are Created Equal”, which Jefferson found so inspiring he added it to his Declaration of Independence. Over 200 years later a Joint Resolution of the 103rd Congress in October 1994 clarified: “the phrase in the Declaration of Independence ‘All men are created equal’, was suggested by the Italian patriot and immigrant Philip Mazzei.”

Read Joint Congressional Resolution on Mazzei

As the Revolutionary War waged on, Jefferson and other Virginia Founding Fathers asked Mazzei to return to Europe and solicit funds, weapons and other support from the leading countries of Europe, which he gladly did, though it separated him from the beloved country he had adopted. As an activity for your 4th this year,

Read the first two chapters of America’s Forgotten Founding Father

At the ‘She Called Action’ 35 Pilot Table Read Contest

My Second-year MFA candidate Randi Barros and I spent the morning on set at the Manhattan Beach Studios watching a filmed table read of Barros’ script “Springtime in September.” A winner of this year’s ‘She Called Action’ 35 Pilot Table Read Contest, the script concerns a suddenly single mother dealing with dating in the new era.

This “She Called Action” event was created by Cheryl Rodes of the women-owned production company Rodes Unpaved, dedicated to putting women as the heroes of the story.

That’s something the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting can certainly support!

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Quote from “America’s Forgotten Founding Father” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 60 in a series – Madame Lavoisier

Learn more about the American Revolution through the eyes of an important, Italian Immigrant, Filippo Mazzei. Read his story today!

“Filippo said sadly, “I have seen many Assemblies, but none so lax as this one in France.”

Madame Lavoisier, spoke in their defense. “Dear Mr. Mazzei, you are doubtless referring to some other Assembly than the one on which my husband sits.”

She was not to be taken lightly. But as a woman she was not a member of the Assembly and so had her information second hand, through her husband and his particular bias.”

From America’s Forgotten Founding Father — Get Your Copy Today!

From America’s Forgotten Founding Father — Get Your Copy Today!

Order an signed copy of America’s Forgotten Founding Father

Print Edition | Kindle Edition | Apple iBooks Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use this book in your classroom? Contact the Mentoris Project!

08 Nora Ephron from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 9 seconds)

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

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

But for her, it started with Heartburn which is the novel she wrote about her own divorce from Carl Bernstein — the Carl Bernstein of All The President’s Men because he had an affair behind her back when she was pregnant. So she dumped him and then she wrote a book about it which became a movie starring Meryl Street and Jack Nicholson. From that, she went on to write Silkwood which is a brilliant film you should check out. Meryl Streep. It’s based on the real-life woman named Karen Silkwood who is about to give secrets to the government about how her nuclear facility was being mismanaged and she ended up crashed on the side of the road dead and nobody knew exactly how that happened. So that’s a brilliant — so she went from drama, drama, to comedy and then, of course, we know the other movies. My Blue Heaven is one of my favorites that got dismissed because didn’t make a lot at the box office but it is quite charming. It’s the witness protection program and it’s Steve Martin as a mafiosi in the program right and Rick Moranis is his his watcher and he doesn’t play by the rules he’s supposed to play and t’s funny as heck. So she’s Nora Ephron. She’s really she’s so brilliant that’s a Nora Ephron Prize you can win if you’re a screenwriter at the Tribeca Film Festival. That’s how important she is to the business right?

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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“When Women Wrote Hollywood” Now at the Los Angeles Public Library!

Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!

Read it from the Los Angeles Public Library Today!

Happy news!

When Women Wrote Hollywood is now available at the Los Angeles Public Library thanks to our friend, Wendy Horowitz.

If you have friends who were interested in reading but low on cash, tell them to check it out.

And this is a reminder that if you want your local library to carry a copy, you need to ask a librarian. They have a form you can fill out that requests what books you’d like in their stacks. You can also send or give them this flyer with all the pertinent information!

When Women Wrote Hollywood Flyer (PDF)

Ask today so someone else can read tomorrow!

Get When Women Wrote Hollywood Today

†

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