“Writing Females in Leadership Roles” WGA Panel Now Online [Video]

Since there’s been so much talk this week about mothers being proud of their highly accomplished children it’s a wonderful week to share the link to the latest Writers Guild Foundation panel co-sponsored by the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting covering the topic of “Writing Females in Leadership Roles”.

Wgaf female characters.

Moderated by our Executive Director Dr. Rosanne Welch the panel includes three writers from shows that celebrate female leaders from the real-life 23-year-old Miep Gies who hid Anne Frank’s family to real-life First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Michelle Obama, and Betty Ford to the fictional female leaders of Station 19. Many thanks to Joan Rater (A Small Light), Zora Bikangaga (The First Lady), and especially to our Stephens College MFA alum Alexandra Fernandez (Station 19) for joining us to discuss everything from our childhood role models of female leadership (mostly moms and aunties) to the traits we expect to see in our leaders, to the nuts and bolts of working in a television writers room.

 

Our Book, “Civil War on Film” Now As An Affordable Paperback! – Pre-now for August 22, 2024 Release

Our Book, “Civil War on Film” Now in As An Affordable Paperback! – Pre-now for August 24, 2024 Release 

One of the benefits of the merger between our first publisher – ABC-Clio – and Bloomsbury Publishing is that Bloomsbury is a larger, more international company with more reach. What that means for my co-writer, Peg Lamphier and me is that our book, The Civil War on Film, will be available in paperback with a $26.95 price tag (much more accessible than the hardback version that is $63) on August 22, 2024.

So if you’ve always wanted to read what Peg and I have to say about which Civil War films are the most honestly historical (spoiler alert – it’s Glory) now’s your time to buy a copy! We were so pleased to include chapters on such great films as Friendly Persuasion (1957); Gettysburg (1993); Gangs of New York (2002); Lincoln (2012); and Free State of Jones (2016) 

As they move forward they plan to release American Women’s History on Film in paperback as well so stay tuned!

The Civil War on Film at the Bloomsbury Publishing Web Site

Recognizing Female Genius by Dr. Rosanne Welch

I was doing editor rewrites on a chapter titled “Dorothy Parker: The Creative Genius Behind Film Franchise A STAR IS BORN.” To the note asking me to consider a “less hagiographic title,” I said “No”.

A quick check showed me that many, many, many male writers are called geniuses – but few women.

For instance, this article, Genius – still a country for white, middle class, heterosexual men*, notes:

“Try a quick google search of the terms “literary genius”. The same names keep appearing: William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Henry James, William Chaucer, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger, and so on.” 

But I would object to J.D. Salinger. Catcher in the Rye did not move me at all – but S. E. The Outsiders(Susan Elizabeth) Hinton’s The Outsiders moved me and all the generations from mine through my son’s Millennial group and into the folks watching the musical on Broadway right now – while teaching us all to love the poetry of another male genius – Robert Frost. See, I’m willing to use the adjective on men when they deserve it.

So the lesson of the day is that if any writer deserves to be called genius, it’s Dorothy Parker.

Own your genius. And use it to describe other female creatives. And maybe refrain from using it on less men for once. 

* Genius – still a country for white, middle class, heterosexual men, Natalie Kon-yu, The Conversation

Married Immigrants Mock Shakespeare for Movie Fame – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, August 2023

I was quite honored when Script Magazine editor Sadie Dean asked me to write a monthly column giving short biographies of female screenwriters across the decades – those who came before us as I like to say – so imagine how shocked I was to find out this is my 30th one to date. Meet Bella Cohen Spewack, born in Romania, a journalist who grew up to write movies that satirized her new career as a screenwriter.


Married Immigrants Mock Shakespeare for Movie Fame – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, August 2023

1899 saw the birth of two future American screenwriters: Bella Cohen in Romania and her future husband and co-writer, Sam Spewack in Ukraine. They each experienced the childhood of an immigrant brought to New York City and each worked as a newspaper reporter in their early careers, Bella for The Call and Sam for New York World. Eventually, they moved to Hollywood to adapt their own play to the screen and much of their later work involved adapting Broadway plays into films.

Read Married Immigrants Mock Shakespeare for Movie Fame


Read about more women from early Hollywood

 

Commencement Speaker, Dr. Rosanne Welch Speaks On “Female Role Models from ’70’s TV” at the Stephens College Graduate Commencement 2023

Commencement Speaker, Dr. Rosanne Welch Speaks ON "Female Role Models from '70's TV"  at the Stephens College Graduate Commencement 2023

On Friday, May 5th I had the honor of delivering the commencement speech at the 2023 Stephens College Commencement Ceremony for Graduate & Continuing Studies as part of having received the Distinguished Faculty Award for the year. The full commencement ceremonies for the 2023 Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting include speeches by MFA student commencement speaker Natalie Cash Petersson and Stephens College President Dianne Lynch.

Together we covered the gamut from “How Watching 1970s TV Gave me the Female Role Models to Succeed in Life” through “How to Channel your Knowledge into Action” and “How to be a Lifelong Learner – After a Well-Deserved Break”.

You can listen to the short ceremony here (the audio is a series of slides but the audio is smooth).

Rosanne’s Speech

Complete Commencement Video

Film Can, Hollywood Heritage Museum, Hollywood, California

A few shots from an event day at the museum for “Afternoon @ The Barn: “Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist” which included a screening of the documentary, Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist (Watch on Kanopy) and a panel discussion with several children of those men and women blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Commission in the 1940s and 50’s.

Film Can, Hollywood Heritage Museum, Hollywood, California  [Photography]

More from my Instagram Feed

Edna Anhalt, Hidden in Her Husband’s Shadow Despite Her Academy Award – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, February 2023

Each month I have the privilege of celebrating the female screenwriters who came before us in an article in Script Magazine. This month’s spotlight is Edna Anhalt — a screenwriter who with her husband Edward won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story. Panic in the Streets (1950) was about a gang of petty criminals carrying the pneumonic plague, Sadly, as with so many women who co-wrote with spouses, there is much more published about his career than hers, though she wrote solo short stories and films as well. 

Edna Anhalt, Hidden in Her Husband’s Shadow Despite Her Academy Award – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, February 2023

To research the writing career of Oscar-winning Edna Anhalt is to be constantly sent to sites detailing her husband’s career with little note about her life outside of that partnership. Edna Thompson was born in New York City in 1914 and married Edward Anhalt in 1935. The dual partnership in marriage and career lasted 20 years. They may have met while enrolled at Columbia University since in 1936 they shared credit on the documentary the Problem Child (1936), produced by the college. 

Read Edna Anhalt, Hidden in Her Husband’s Shadow Despite Her Academy Award


Read about more women from early Hollywood

 

New Reviews for American Women’s History on Film written by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier

 

American Women’s History on Film, my newest book co-written with my colleague Dr. Peg Lamphier is out now and so some reviews are beginning to roll in. While this review in Booklist (March 2023) is mostly informational it’s always nice to hear that our writing style is “informative and engaging” and that this “makes the book a welcome addition to women’s and film-history collections.” That’s been our hope since being commissioned for the book a few years ago.

Yep, it takes a few years from being commissioned to do the research, do the writing, do the rewriting, do the editing, and then for the publishers to print and distribute the book. Our first book in the series covered Films of the Civil War – with that historical period being Peg’s academic specialty and film being mine. Covering women’s history and film this new book fits perfectly in each of our wheelhouses. 

The icing on the cake for me was the chance to celebrate films I adored in my childhood and that I now have on the viewing list for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting like: Norma Rae, and Silkwood alongside films written and produced by friends of mine such as On the Basis of Sex (produced by Karen Loop) and Hidden Figures (written by Allison Schroeder).  

Student Voices: TV + Screenwriting from the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting [Video]

Thanks to all the current MFA candidates and alums who sat for interviews so that we could create this video for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting and thanks to the Stephens College videographer, Andrew Church, for all his work on the project. Who knew a 2-minute video could take so many hours of interviewing and editing – oh, yeah, anyone else who does this for a living.

Student Voices: TV + Screenwriting from the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting [Video]

Watch Panel: Anatomy of a Meet Cute: Writing Romantic Comedies – WGA Foundation – Hosted by Dr. Rosanne Welch. Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

One of my favorite events during each of our Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Residency Workshops is when I have the opportunity to moderate a panel of WGA writers on a topic of interest to our MFA candidates. This January it was Anatomy of a Meet Cute: Writing Romantic Comedies.

 

Panel: Anatomy of a Meet Cute: Writing Romantic Comedies – WGA Foundation – Hosted by Dr. Rosanne Welch. Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Panel: Anatomy of a Meet Cute: Writing Romantic Comedies – WGA Foundation – Hosted by Dr. Rosanne Welch. Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Panelists included MFA alum Sahar Jahani (Writer, Hana Khan Carries On, The Bold Type, Ramy), Tracy Andreen (Writer, The Holiday Sitter, All Saints Christmas, Two Tickets to Paradise); Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith (Writer/Producer, Trinkets, Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Ugly Truth); and Nia Vardalos (Writer/Director/Actor, My Big Fat Greek Wedding films, Larry Crowne, I Hate Valentine’s Day).

It was an engaging, entertaining, and especially supportive group of women talking about the importance of stories about choosing our partners in life.