On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch – Page 292

More info on Doctor Who and Race book – Now available in the UK

Life, Doctor Who, and ComBom recently posted a story on Doctor Who and Race, a new book essays in which Rosanne’s writing appears. Here is their take on the book an the controversy that has sprung up around it.

“Intellect Books have just released Doctor Who and Race, an anthology of essays about, well, the depiction of race in Doctor Who. Blurb: “Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction television series in the world and is regularly watched by millions of people across the globe. While its scores of fans adore the show with cult-like devotion, the fan-contributors to this book argue that there is an uncharted dimension to Doctor Who. Bringing together diverse perspectives on race and its representation in Doctor Who, this anthology offers new understandings of the cultural significance of race in the programme – how the show’s representations of racial diversity, colonialism, nationalism and racism affect our daily lives and change the way we relate to each other. An accessible introduction to critical race theory, postcolonial studies and other race-related academic fields, the 23 contributors deftly combine examples of the popular cultural icon and personal reflections to provide an analysis that is at once approachable but also filled with the intellectual rigor of academic critique.” Copies are available for £19.95.

Editor Lindy Orthia has created a blog to talk about the book: it currently features short biographies of the contributors, useful links, and a few articles, including a comment on the pre-publication controversies (the Radio Times piece on the book offering the most neutral explanation on what issues concerned the authors and what the BBC had to say in response. Racialicious strongly defended the book and the Daily Mail strongly defended the BBC, rather uncharacteristically of the tabloid, so that about runs the gamut of reactions.)”

Read the entire article

“The Promise” – a new children’s book from Rosanne Welch and Dawn Comer Jefferson

Buy now from Amazon.com*

Based on a true story, The Promise follows Mary, the 9 year old daughter of slave family in Louisiana in the 1850s. Because Mary and her father can read and write, Mary’s family is promised freedom if they travel with their master on the treacherous Oregon Trail. When they reach Oregon, the master frees the parents but keeps Mary and her brother as slaves. Mary’s parents take the master to court to sue for custody of their children, and with Mary’s brave testimony, they set in motion a law which helps determine if Oregon will come into the Union as a free state or a slave state. The Promise is a historical chapter book for children ages 7-9.

About the authors

Dawn Comer Jefferson

Dawn Comer Jefferson is a television writer whose credits include Judging Amy, South of Nowhere, The Bold & the Beautiful and the Los Angeles Holiday Celebration. Dawn was nominated for an Emmy Award for Our Friend, Martin, an animated family film about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. With Rosanne Welch, Dawn co-edited the nonfiction book, Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work, and Family (Seal Press).

Rosanne Welch, PhD

Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.

* You don’t need a Kindle device to read Kindle books. With Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader — a web browser-based Kindle Reader — you don’t even need to download any extra software. That said, the Kindle reader apps for Windows, Macintosh, iPhone, iPad and Android devices improves the reading experience.

Rosanne’s writing appears in book, Doctor Who and Race

Rosanne’s essay is entitled “When white boys write black: Race and class in the Davies and Moffat eras”.

Available August 15, 2013 – Pre-Order Your Copy Today via Amazon.com

Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction television series in the world and is regularly watched by millions of people across the globe. While its scores of fans adore the show with cult-like devotion, the fan-contributors to this book argue that there is an uncharted dimension to Doctor Who. Bringing together diverse perspectives on race and its representation in Doctor Who, this anthology offers new understandings of the cultural significance of race in the programme – how the show’s representations of racial diversity, colonialism, nationalism and racism affect our daily lives and change the way we relate to each other.

An accessible introduction to critical race theory, postcolonial studies and other race-related academic fields, the 23 contributors deftly combine examples of the popular cultural icon and personal reflections to provide an analysis that is at once approachable but also filled with the intellectual rigor of academic critique.

Lindy Orthia is a lecturer at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, the Australian National University. She has examined intersections between science, ideology and Doctor Who in several publications.

All proceeds for royalties for Dr Who and Race will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières and AVERT.

Writers:

Emily Asher-Perrin
Alec Charles
Vanessa De Kauwe
Linnea Dodson
Fire Fly
Erica Foss
Stephanie Guerdan
Amit Gupta
Marcus K. Harmes
Mike Hernandez
Quiana Howard
George Ivanoff
Kristine Larsen
Leslie Mcmurtry
Catriona Mills
Rachel Morgain
Kate Orman
Lindy Orthia
Richard Scully
Robert Smith
John Vohlidka
Rosanne Welch
Iona Yeager

Video: Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on “Presenting Yourself Well on Paper” for CareerCamp Online 2009.

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on “Presenting Yourself Well on Paper” for CareerCamp Online 2009.

More video from CareerCamp and Douglas E. Welch

Writers on Writing: ‘Backbeat’ creators go beyond the standard musical theater fare

I read this review of Backbeat, the new theatrical musical about the early days of the Beatles, to my MFA writing class because of its discussion of ‘the Jerome Robbins question’. Apparently when working on a new show Robbins would always ask for a one word description of the play.

For example, for Fiddler on the Roof the word was ‘tradition’. For this play about the Beatles, the word was ‘courage’. Read the review to figure out why – and try this same question in your own writing!

‘Backbeat’ creators go beyond the standard musical theater fare

In telling the pre-history of the Beatles, director David Leveaux aims to make the action of both the music and drama converge in the Ahmanson-bound show.

Searching for his way into the new musical “Backbeat,” which examines the Beatles’ early days (and nights) in Hamburg, Germany, David Leveaux asked himself what he called “the Jerome Robbins question.”

It’s a tactic he picked up in 2004 while overseeing a Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” That show’s book writer, Joseph Stein, was recounting his experience on Robbins’ original 1964 production and told Leveaux that one day the director asked, ‘OK, so what is this musical about? I want one word,'” Leveaux said.

Read the Entire Article

Previously in Writers on Writing:

Phillipa Boyens on Adapting “The Lord of the Rings“

Writers on Writing: Phillipa Boyens on Adapting “The Lord of the Rings”

This post begins my new series, Writers on Writing, (or WOW!) — a collection of the kinds of articles I bring to the attention of my writing classes on a regular basis.

This piece on Philippa Boyens seems like a nice place to start since she discusses the ten year odyssey she’s been on since agreeing to help adapt the world of J.R.R. Tolkien with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. She is particularly interesting when analyzing how writing The Hobbitt is different from Lord of the Rings.

Read on McGuff – and watch this spot for more WOW in the future. Feel free to send me good things you read about writing and I’ll post those as well. — Rosanne

Philippa Boyens: Del Toro’s ‘Hobbit’ would have been ‘amazing’

“There and Back Again” is the subtitle of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” and it would certainly serve handily for a biography of many of those involved in taking the book to film, though none perhaps as well as Philippa Boyens.

Asked one day in 1997 if, as a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, she might have any interest in helping out friends and fellow New Zealanders Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh adapt “The Lord of the Rings” for film, Boyens, a former teacher and then executive director of the New Zealand Writers Guild, shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?”

Read the entire article

Rosanne’s Top 5 Books for Film Buffs

Here are my Top 5 picks for the best books for film buffs.

Dunne, John Gregory. Monster: Living Off the Big Screen. New York: Random House, 1997.

Even though it’s about a film made in 1996 that even die hard Robert Redford fans have not likely seen (Up Close and Personal), this book about writing a blockbuster film by John Gregory Dunne discusses Hollywood honestly – especially as it deals with married screenwriters like he and his wife Joan Didion.

Harmetz, Aljean . The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II. Hyperion, 2002.

You don’t need to love the film to like this book about how a classic came together. I like the way Harmetz gives backgrounds on all the supporting characters and we learn how many were refugees from Nazi regimes.

McGillligan, Patrick. Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

McGillligan has 4 more books in this series – each one containing long, interesting interviews with screenwriters from a particular era from the 1920s to the 1990s. And as we all know, writers are highly entertaining conversationalists!

Messenger, Chris. The Godfather and American Culture: How the Corleones Became “Our Gang.” Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

What’s to say except this is a great book if you love The Godfather – but even if you don’t it is a good reminder of how certain movies become entrenched in our national culture – and can do things like make us more comfortable with minorities so that they soon become majorities.

Norman, Marc. What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting. New York: Harmony Books, 2007.

This is the history of how screenwriters got screwed out of being considered the legal ‘authors’ of the works they write!

Article: Hey, Hey, They Wrote The Monkees – Written By Magazine

My latest article for Written By Magazine is an interview with several of the writers who began their career on the writing staff of The Monkees. You can read the entire article by clicking the page below or downloading the entire issue as a PDF.

Hey, Hey, They Wrote The Monkees
How a few writers changed the hair-length (and face) of television

Early 1960s television characters came in a one-size-fits-all, squeaky-clean-cut style, from Dr. Kildare in his white lab coat, to Hoss Cartwright in his white Stetson, to Sr. Bertrille in her white habit. That lasted until 7:30 p.m. Monday, September 12, 1966 when four long-haired teenagers began dancing a Monkeewalk while singing, “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees.”

Though it looked simple enough, the comedy was about more than four struggling musicians living in a beach house they couldn’t afford, without adult supervision, and hoping for success while engaging in Marx(Bros)ian humor. According to star Micky Dolenz, the only actor with previous television series experience: “It brought long hair into the living room and changed the way teenagers were portrayed on television.”

Dolenz’s opinion is backed up by psychologist and author Timothy Leary in The Politics of Ecstasy: “While it lasted, it was a classic Sufi[ism] put-on. An early-Christian electronic satire. A mystic magic show. A jolly Buddha laugh at hypocrisy. And woven into the fast-moving psychedelic stream of action were the prophetic, holy, challenging words. Micky was rapping quickly, dropping literary names, making scholarly references.”

Read the entire article

Download entire Written By issue as PDF

Providence High School opens new science center complex – The Tidings

Providence High School opens new science center complex
Written by BY ROSANNE WELCH

The theme “I’ll Make a Difference” permeated the opening of the new Science Center complex at Providence High School in Burbank on the first day of the 2012-2013 school year.

Attended by students, parents, Sisters of Providence and local City of Burbank officials including Mayor Dave Golonski and Vice Mayor Emily Gabel-Luddy, the Aug. 20 ribbon-cutting ceremony included a prayer service celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson and Msgr. Robert Gallagher.

[…]

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Tidings Article on St. Cyril Vocal Ensemble Organist

The article I wrote about our church Organist and Music Director, Mr. Beck, assisting the school’s Vocal Ensemble is in this weekend’s issue of The Tidings with a photo that includes Joseph!

St. Cyril student choir excels with help from renowned organist

In his position as organist and director of music for St. Cyril of Jerusalem Church in Encino, William Beck has been recognized for accompanying the congregation and 40-person choir each Sunday and producing more than six special concerts a year involving special guest conductors and world-renowned musicians and colleagues.

School parents are most familiar with him for accompanying the middle grade choir at Sunday Masses, working with each grade individually as they prepare their annual Christmas concert and taking the time every June to drive down to Anaheim to accompany the school’s Vocal Ensemble when they perform at the Forum Festival.

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