Writing – Page 85 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch and writers from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” at the Denver Pop Culture Con via Instagram

Dr. Rosanne Welch and writers from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” at the Denver Pop Culture Con

Editor/Writer Dr. Rosanne Welch and a few of her fellow writers ((l-r) Sydney Haven, Mikayla Daniels, Kelley Zinge and Amy Banks) 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.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

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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

Quote from “America’s Forgotten Founding Father” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 56 in a series – Mazzei and Jefferson in Paris

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

Filippo hurried to Paris to spend as much time with Jefferson as possible, having heard that his friend still grieved over Martha’s loss.

On their second night dining together, Jefferson found himself sharing his correspondence with Filippo. Some came from their friends in the United States, some from diplomats around Europe. As he opened them, Jefferson tried to focus on those involving business and avoid those still offering condolences for her loss.

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

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

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.

Watch this entire presentation

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.

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” In The News! – Righting history: Book by Stephens students elevates women screenwriters via Columbia Daily Tribune

When I learned that our humble little book about female screenwriters from Hollywood’s golden era, When Women Wrote Hollywood, had been named runner-up for the Susan Koppelman Award (an honor bestowed upon the “best anthology, multi-authored, or edited book in feminist studies in popular and American culture” by the Popular Culture Association of America) I immediately “Alerted the Media!”

Happily, Aarik Danielsen, Arts and Music Editor for the Columbia Tribune responded, interviewed a couple of our contributors and produced a great article that you can now read. Then, as they say, you can “Buy That Book!” by clicking here and learn more about the many female screenwriters of Hollywood’s golden era!

Thanks Aarik – and thanks to all the contributors scattered across America.

Righting history: Book by Stephens students elevates women screenwriters

On a smash hit from 2011, pop luminary Beyonce engages in a subversive act of call-and-response.

“Who run the world?” she asks. The chant comes back, time and again: “Girls!”

Who wrote the films that entrenched Hollywood as a cultural force? A book written by Stephens College students creates its own antiphony, calling back with a confident answer: women.

“When Women Wrote Hollywood: Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry” elevates an important moment in cinema history. Despite the complicated, often exasperating, treatment of women in Hollywood, the collection reminds us that prior to World War II, women were a prominent creative force, penning some of the era’s most memorable films.

Released last summer, “When Women Wrote Hollywood” recently was named runner-up for the Susan Koppelman Award, an honor bestowed upon the “best anthology, multi-authored, or edited book in feminist studies in popular and American culture.”

Read the entire article

Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon

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.

The Mentoris Project Podcast: Fermi’s Gifts with Author, Kate Fuglei [Audio]

My latest podcast with my fellow Mentoris authors is now available on the Mentoris Web Site. Give it a listen! — Rosanne

The Mentoris Project Podcast: Fermi’s Gifts with Author, Kate Fuglei

Hosted by Dr. Rosanne Welch

Listen Now

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Today’s guest is Kate Fuglei, author of Fermi’s Gifts: A Novel Based on the life of Enrico Fermi. Fermi is known as the “architect of the nuclear age” and for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

About the Author

An actress, singer, and writer, Fuglei created a one-woman show, Rachel Calof, based on the memoir of a Jewish homesteader, and has performed it around America. It won Best Musical at the 2015 United Solo Festival in New York City. Fuglei has appeared in more than forty roles in episodic television and film, and she was in the First National Broadway tour of Spring Awakening

Based in Los Angeles, she has played leading roles in regional theaters across the country, among them Arena Stage, the Public Theater in NYC, and the La Jolla Playhouse. Two of her short stories appear as part of Sister Writereaters, a book of essays about motherhood and food. katefuglei.com

Fuglei is the author of two Mentoris Project books: Fermi’s Gifts: A Novel Based on the Life of Enrico Fermi and The Soul of a Child: A Novel Based on the Life of Maria Montessori.

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Visit the Mentoris Project for more!

Also from the Mentoris Project

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

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

Subscribe to Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

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!

10 Quotes About Music, Life, and Stereotypes by Peter Tork via Ultimate Guitar

Wise advice from a gentle man, Peter Took.— Rosanne

10 Quotes About Music, Life, and Stereotypes by Peter Tork via Ultimate Guitar

About music

Put you energy into music. If it fails you, you can become an accountant or a dentist. And then if you become a dentist or an accountant, it’s too late to become a musician afterwards.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

Pop music is aspirin and the blues are vitamins.

…and many more!d

Read 10 Quotes About Music, Life, and Stereotypes by Peter Tork via Ultimate Guitar

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

Remembering Screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson on her birthday – When Women Wrote Hollywood

“The resounding mythology around the start of Macpherson’s film career is that she, with immeasurable pluck, simply walked into D.W. Griffith’s office and waited for him for days on end. Finally, the assistant asked about her. “I told him my stage experience. He ignored it, scorned it. ‘We want to know what you can do before a camera,’ he said.”

Jeanie Macpherson: A Life Unknown by Amelia Phillips

Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon

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.

Quotes from When Women Wrote Hollywood – 29 – in a series – Frances Marion

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

Get “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Today!

For over twenty years, no writer was more sought after than Frances Marion. With her versatile pen and a caustic wit, she was a leading participant in one of the most creative eras for women in American history. She is credited with writing more than 300 scripts covering every conceivable genre and she also directed and produced half a dozen films.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood or Buy the Book on Amazon

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

Elena Ferrante: A Power of Our Own via The New York Times

Excellent opinion piece by Elena Ferrante (a pseudonym for an Italian novelist, author of the four Neapolitan novels beginning with ‘My Brilliant Friend’ that have been turned into an HBO series).

It covers the power of storytelling and the way the world needs to adapt to the way women wield power.

Elena Ferrante: A Power of Our Own
Power is a story told by women. For centuries, men have colonized storytelling. That era is over.

Power, although hard to handle, is greatly desired. There is no person or group or sect or party or mob that doesn’t want power, convinced that it would know how to use it as no one ever has before.

I’m no different. And yet I’ve always been afraid of having authority assigned to me. Whether it was at school or at work, men were in the majority in any governing body and the women adopted male ways. I never felt at ease, so I stayed on the sidelines. I was sure that I didn’t have the strength to sustain conflicts with men, and that I would betray myself by adapting my views to theirs. For millenniums, every expression of power has been conditioned by male attitudes toward the world. To women, then, it seems that power can be used only in the ways that men have traditionally used it.

Read the entire article – Elena Ferrante: A Power of Our Own

* 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!