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.
Many thanks to the essay contributors who joined us and spoke so eloquently about the women writers they had researched: Toni Anita Hull, Laura Kirk, Amelia Phillips, Sarah Phillips, Julie Berkobien, Khanisha Foster, Lauren Smith, and to Cari Beauchamp, who wrote the Forward to the collection.
* 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
To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch
Lorna Moon (born Nora Helen Wilson Low; 16 June 1886 – 1 May 1930[1]) was a Scottish author and screenwriter from the early days of Hollywood.
An anecdote tells how she contacted Cecil B. DeMille and offered a critical appraisal of the screenplays of the day. He challenged her to come to Hollywood and write them herself if she thought she could do better; and by 1921 she did just that, working as a script girl and screenwriter. During her career in Hollywood she had a third child by Cecil B. DeMille’s brother William. This child, Richard, grew up unaware of his mother’s identity; in later years he discovered his parentage and wrote the memoir My Secret Mother, Lorna Moon.[2] Lorna Moon contracted tuberculosis and died in a sanatorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1930, aged 44.— Wikipedia
* 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
Jefferson said, “I love this land and intend to live out my life here, but without society, and a society to our taste, men are never contented. So buy this land and we can build a society to our taste… the young Madison will inherit land but a day’s drive away and, as I understand it, you and he have already met.”
* 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
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.
Many thanks to the essay contributors who joined us and spoke so eloquently about the women writers they had researched: Toni Anita Hull, Laura Kirk, Amelia Phillips, Sarah Phillips, Julie Berkobien, Khanisha Foster, Lauren Smith, and to Cari Beauchamp, who wrote the Forward to the collection.
* 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
For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!
Transcript:
But probably more important as a normal example to people is when she realizes that her affections would never be returned in the same way, rather than stay in a relationship that would always be depressing, she told him why she was leaving and she left. That is a huge strength and a huge thing to represent to young men and women in bad relationships. So that is pretty cool and not to mention the fact that she happened to be the first Englishman of African Descent — when I first wrote about her I wrote about her as an African-American until the English editor said “No. She lives in England” and I went “Oh yeah, so she can’t be an African-American. She’s an Englishman of African Descent that’s how they refer over there. She had to work with sometimes going into the past and dealing with the way people of African descent would have been treated in those earlier historic times and that was a much more difficult thing to do than some of the other companions of European descent. So she had a lot more strength than people gave her credit for. In my opinion.
Rosanne Welch PhD teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.
Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
* 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
While spending my Saturday approving the copyedits in the Technical Innovation in American History 3 volume encyclopedia Peg and I completed this year, I came upon the entry for Almanacs and was reminded of these smart bits of advice from none other than Benjamin Franklin.
Isn’t it funny how he becomes such an icon of history – and such a character (he even appeared in an episode of Bewitched!) that we forget he was a man – and a writer – and a rebel (why does ‘writer’ and ‘rebel’ often go hand in hand?).
Remember he said it first:
“There are no gains without pains.” “One today is worth two tomorrows.” “Have you something to do tomorrow? Do it today.”
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![Toni Anita Hull, Author of “Anita Loos: A Girl Like Her” from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” [Video] (2:42)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/w3h-hull.jpeg)
![26 Martha Jones from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (1:01)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/gender-dw-26-martha.jpeg)
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