Putting the "litter" into "literature"

Inspired by finding novels littered on Manhattan subways by authors trying to create a word-of-mouth buzz, [Robert] Chalmers devised a scheme to help promote his new book, East of Nowhere.

"It's putting the litter back in literature. I had this idea of bombarding a small town with books, so they end up everywhere and can't be avoided." But why Otley? "When my novel was serialised in a newspaper," he explains, "there was a credit-card hotline number which was actually an answerphone in my bedroom. Only three people called, but all of them were from Yorkshire. So Yorkshire seems to be lucky for me."

On account of its size, shape, and the fact that it competes for the national title of having the most pubs per capita, Otley was chosen. Known chiefly for its portrayal of the town of Hotton in TV soap Emmerdale, Chalmers has come to town with 1,000 copies of his novel and is hoping that handing them out to 4 per cent of the 25,000 residents will give him a slightly more realistic chance of local fame than he has had in London or New York.

The full story is in The Independent.

Baby Cow and Channel X move north

Top independent TV companies Baby Cow and Channel X are opening offices in Manchester, reports The Stage. The move was assisted by funding from film and television development agency North West Vision as part of an initiative to attract production houses to the region and to support indigenous talent.

Leicester Haymarket Theatre gets go-ahead

Multi-million pound plans for the replacement of the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester have been approved by the city council, with work now expected to begin on the site before the end of the month.

The local authority gave the project final approval earlier this week, despite council leader Roger Blackmore previously expressing reservations over the scheme’s rising costs. The new performing arts centre, designed by world famous architect Rafael Vinoly, is now priced at £48 million. This is nearly double its original estimate of £26 million, making it one of the most expensive theatre projects in the UK.

The full story is in The Stage.

The Stage also reports that there is to be a new theatre in the West End - the Sound Theatre on Leicester Square will open on 21 June.

The 200-seat venue will be run by KIT Productions, which will produce its own work as well as transferring productions from London’s fringe circuit into the theatre. There will also be a programme of late-night events for cabaret, music and live art.

Ofcom calls for BBC to link to other broadcasters

The media industry regulator Ofcom has called for the BBC to become more closely linked to other broadcasters as part of its future development. In its response to the Government’s Green Paper on the Review of the BBC Royal Charter, it says:

Ofcom believes that - if the public service system as a whole is to continue to have wide influence and impact in the future - it is essential that the BBC is not allowed to become isolated in a growing - and exclusively commercially-focused - sector.

If the BBC were to become the UK’s sole public service provider, there is a risk that audience tastes would be conditioned by the commercial majority rather than the public service minority; and that producers, writers, editors and other talent would be heavily conditioned by the needs of the commercial sector alone. This would leave the BBC vulnerable to a decline in market share and loss of viewer, industry and political support.

Cliff Hollingsworth - from rags to riches

Cliff Hollingsworth, the writer of forthcoming Hollywood movie Cinderella Man, has spent his career being ignored, reports the WGA. Until now.

I made the decision to sit on [my other] scripts until Cinderella Man came out. Had I known it was going to take this long, maybe I would have made a different decision, but I guess now I'm glad I did. I've always been told it's a night-and-day difference between a produced writer and an unproduced writer in terms of how [the industry] treats you … That's why these new scripts I've written haven't gone out anywhere.

Comedy - Solved

Excellent. Comedy has been solved.

Comedy website Chortle reports that Dr Helen Pilcher and Timandra Harkness have identified the formula that determines a sitcom's success.

It is: (F(RD + V) + S) / A

Where: R is the recognisability of the main character, D is their delusions of grandeur, V is the verbal wit of the script, F is the pratfall factor, S is the difference in social status between the highest- and lowest-ranking characters and A is the success of any scheme.

And with that, we comedy writers can puff our cheeks out, clap our hands together, emit a satisfied "good!" and then head down the pub. Forever.

We have uktvGOLD to thank for that, apparently.

Soho Theatre - five years on

It is five years since [Soho Theatre] artistic director Abigail Morris and an equally intrepid board and staff officially opened the venue in Dean Street, London. The building remains the only one to be bought on the open market by an arts organisation using Arts Council England money. It had been a synagogue in its past and perhaps something still resonates that causes it to be such a community-driven venue, run with an almost religious devotion.

Jeremy Austin in The Stage profiles one of the country's leading new writing theatres.

What is Alan Yentob for?

According to the BBC's Press Office:

Alan Yentob is Director of Drama, Entertainment and CBBC, a position he has held since April 2000. In June 2004 he also became the BBC's Creative Director.

Alan is at the creative helm of the BBC and has overall responsibility for BBC drama, entertainment and all aspects of the BBC's children's output across all media.

He has responsibility for a significant film division and is the focal point for talent management across the whole of the BBC.

But what does all that actually mean? Rachel Cooke in The Observer spent a day with him in an attempt to find out.

I would say that the greater part of his job involves talking: on the phone, in meetings, at parties. In some respects, he is a human vacuum cleaner, sucking up ideas as if they were so much dust. In others, he is the great soother. Perhaps because he can be sensitive to criticism himself, he is adept at making others feel good about their own contributions. In an organisation as huge, political and potentially bitchy as the BBC, I imagine even a bit of this goes a long way. He genuinely wants to make a difference and the idea of doing so, after all these years, still excites him.

Dracula blogged

Bram Stoker's Dracula re-told in a real-time blog. Thanks to The Guardian Online for highlighting this link, as well as one to a discussion of what they call metafiction.

Ismail Kadaré wins International Booker

Ismail Kadaré is today has been named as the winner of the first ever Man Booker International Prize.

Kadaré, born in 1936 in the Albanian mountain town of Gjirokaster near the Greek border, is Albania's best-known poet and novelist. He has lived in France since 1990, following his decision to seek asylum stating that: "Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship." Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, said:

"Ismail Kadaré's novels shine a light on the mores of his native Albania. His writing reflects not only the complexities of a nation coming to terms with its freedom, but also his own personal experiences, and make him a worthy recipient of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize."

Ismail Kadaré will receive the prize of £60,000 and a trophy at the Award Ceremony on 27 June 2005 in Edinburgh.

In accordance with the rules of the recently announced separate prize for translation, Kadaré will choose a translator or translators to receive an additional prize of £15,000.

Comedy - Sitcom Writers At War

I like to think of writing as a noble, elegant and largely solitary pursuit. When a writer does go to meet other humans they may also be writers and, unencumbered by professional jealousy, they have the satisfied understanding that they are in accord and privileged to share conversation with another writer (as opposed to a Labour Party press officer, a convicted baby smuggler or Princess Michael of Kent).

Unfortunately, writing is now about going out into the world with a stack of paper under your arm marked "writing"; finding someone else with a similar stack of paper; and then kicking each other violently in the shins. The one who drops their stack of paper first is clearly not as good a writer as he thought he was.

I'm talking about a tendency to make writers battle it out head-to-head (or head-to-head-to-head-to-head... as the case may be).

I was reminded of this by a press release from the USA about Bravo TV's Situation:Comedy.

Bravo's new series will allow viewers to go behind the scenes of national television as neophyte writers will earn the opportunity to produce and sell a sitcom - but the eavesdropping audience will give the final thumbs-up by choosing the winning entry that will be broadcast on Bravo.

[...] the lucky five writers were flown to Los Angeles, where they were thrown into the deep end of the creative pitching pool. They then submitted their ideas to NBC network executives who green-lighted two of the scripts to go into production as 15-minute presentations [...]

The final two "wannabe" writers (or writing teams) were thrust immediately into the high-energy, high-stress world of television production. Viewers will be with them as they meet their staffs and find that they have to share many of their key staffers.

In addition, audiences will watch the entire process through casting, set design, rewrites, rehearsals, taping and post-production. In the end, they will see each completed presentation and can vote online for the sitcom they believe should get a shot for broadcast on television. The winner will receive a cash prize of $25,000 and exclusive representation for one year with a major Hollywood talent agency to further help launch a successful writing career in film or television.

I think it's time I took up knitting.

This form is already with us in Britain where the BBC's Last Laugh competition will involve the winners in television appearances. In fifty years we've managed to conjure up Hancock, Steptoe & Son, Fawlty Towers and the mighty Cilla's World of Comedy without reducing writers to dancing media monkey-boys.

The next writer to join the ranks of Galton & Simpson could be someone you first saw completing an obstacle course to win a treacle tart or soaping their genitals in a glass walled latrine.

LBC book club

A new book club run by London radio station LBC has been criticised for selecting titles on the basis of payments made by publishers, reports Jack Malvern in The Times.

Books that appear on the Book of the Month feature on Daisy Sampson’s drive-time show on LBC are selected not by a panel of experts, but by the books’ publishers, who pay £10,000 to get a book on air. Despite criticism from authors, who believe that readers will be misled by the book club, LBC said that it had no intention of informing its listeners of the five-figure fees.

Mostra, the marketing agency which set up the club, said that although it would allow a range of views to be broadcast on each book, LBC would not broadcast any review featuring severe criticism.

Antony Beevor, the author of Stalingrad and chairman of the Society of Authors, described the LBC book club as a “deeply cynical” exercise. “It puts complaints about bungs given to booksellers to get them to put books in their windows completely in the shade,” he said. “Obviously it is just a way of buying publicity. If you are buying an advertisement it should be made clear that it is an advertisement.”

Book Slam

When Ben Watt, one half of the dance duo Everything But The Girl, told the author Patrick Neate that he wanted to put on a bookish event at his west-London bar Cherry Jam, Neate wasn't very encouraging. "I told him it was a stupid idea," he says. Two years later, Book Slam - a monthly night hosted by Neate - has become the brightest example of a new trend in live author events. The scene has its origins in the slam poetry scene and the concept is simple: authors known and unknown read extracts from their work and DJs and bands play in between.

Literary festivals and author readings have always been a staple of British literary culture, but Book Slam is different. It's just like a night down the pub, only with story-telling thrown in. "I wanted to put on a night that I actually wanted to go to," said Neate. "I could be really highfalutin' about it, but Book Slam is just an excuse to listen to good music and literature and not worry that I'm 34."

The full story from Claire Allfree is in The Independent.

Power-cut at the Guild

The Writers' Guild offices have suffered a complete power-cut. Please be patient if you are trying to contact the office. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Guild chair backs BBC unions

Graham Lester George, Chair of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, has added his support for the action that broadcasting unions are taking against cuts planned by the BBC. Speaking at the Euro-MEI General Assembly in Budapest, where an emergency resolution supporting the unions was backed, Graham said that "We [the Guild] believe in the BBC and in its virtues".

Comedy - Hay, Hay, Hay... wassup!?

Don't panic, I won't speak in that kind of urban lingo any longer. It's unbecoming in one, such as I, bespectacled and pasty faced. I can't stand it any more than you can.

I'm Graeme and Tom Green has allowed me to be the blog's comedy writing correspondent. I'll try and ensure that no opportunities for comedy writers slip through this particular cybernet. I'll also point you at articles, news and interviews relating to comedy.

First up then, the previously mentioned literary behemoth that is The Hay Festival has a nifty online programme and allows you to view all the events that are humorous in nature. (Don't let the fact that what then appears is headed by Max Boyce fool you, it really is a listing of comedy).

You can create similarly tunnel visioned listings for other, far less important, categories such as philosophy and history by palpating the little widgets on the right of the page.

Haype This Haylps.

Update: On closer inspection I now notice that the only event left under the comedy category that you can see without the aid of a TARDIS is Ned Sherrin. Note to self: "Future posts to be more useful".

In a desperate bid to recover face, here's a snippet from the BBC Comedy Blog about comedians at Hay:

Later, Braben regaled the audience with gag-filled reminiscences of working with Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise and Ken Dodd. (Sometimes even topical: he said Tony Blair's back problems were down to "the way he's been lying")

Braben churned out one-liners for Dodd's relentless six-gags-a-minute act for 12 years. Counting the jokes that never made it, it's been estimated that he wrote more than half a million jokes for Dodd alone. "You have to write 300 gags to get 60 - you always have to overwrite," he said.

Writing half a million jokes for Ken Dodd. Imagine. Like some kind of Gag-Gulag (shudder).

Midsomer Murders an international hit

Midsomer Murders, based on the books by Caroline Graham, is the UK's second most successful TV export, reports BBC News.

The ITV drama sells to 201 countries, second only to Gillette World Sport which sells to 240.

The full survey of UK TV exports for 2004 is available from Pact.

TV show ignores writers

Further to the post below, this account of the more common experience of script-writers being totally ignored is sent to me by Julius Hogben

In the first of his new BBC TV series last night, Cambridge University don Nigel Spivey set out his subject, “telling stories in pictures”. Beginning “in the dawn of time”, as TV presenters so often do, he declared that “ the same technique has proved crucial to the success of every film made today.”

He then managed to tell the story of Ulysses and the Cyclops by statues, with his own narration, without featuring the key role of Homer. Later, he hauled on George Miller director and co-writer of Mad Max to say “One cannot underestimate the effect of special effects and music in modern film storytelling.” Fair enough. You suspect that Miller’s co-writer on Mad Max must have been quite significant, not to mention his two other co-writers on Mad Max 2.

Tune in next week for more on How Art Made the World Without Writers?

TV critic credits writers

It's not often that a soap or series writer gets a name check in a TV review. So for two to be mentioned in one piece (Media Guardian, free registration required) must be something of a record. The luck couple are Colin Wyatt (EastEnders) and Nick Fisher (New Tricks).

Regular readers will remember that the reviewer, Rupert Smith, recently accepted a challenge from Mal Young and wrote an episode of Doctors. Maybe all reviewers should be given the same opportunity.

Children's book prizes

How richly should we reward high achievement in children's writing? Even Philip Pullman, that matchless inventor of parallel worlds, might think twice about devising an imaginary kingdom that endowed an annual prize for young people's literature worth a cool £385,000 - from the public coffers - to the winner. The lucky author collects this fairy-tale crock of gold from a genuine princess and caps a week of official festivities with a lecture in the nation's parliament.

As it happens, Pullman has merely shared this year's Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, founded and funded by the Swedish state in tribute to the creator of Pippi Longstocking and the values that her books uphold. The enormous cheque, and the dazzling limelight of this week's jamboree in Stockholm, has been split between the fabricator of His Dark Materials and the Japanese illustrator Ryôji Arai. All the same, Sweden's generosity has a truly folkloric aspect, down to Wednesday's meeting with the Crown Princess - who arrived, one trusts, in a glass coach drawn by white mice - and the mythically round sum (five million crowns) of the award itself.

More on children's books prizes from Boyd Tonkin in The Independent.

Making Hay

If you can't get to the Hay Festival, you can follow it all week on The Guardian's Hay Festival blog.

More genteel than most is that of Alexander McCall Smith, a man whose professorial demeanour frequently collapses into mildly hysterical laughter over a deeply funny hour that ranges from German academic nomenclature to a one-legged sausage dog.

He is, he explains, suffering from a condition that he caught from Armistead Maupin at a San Francisco party. "This is a medical issue – serial novelism. There is no cure – you write serial novels and then you die."

Who's blogging

In recent weeks we have started to open this blog up to a greater range of authors.

Dutch screenwriter Thessa Mooij is sending occasional reports from America, where she lives, and Edel Brosnan will be submitting posts next week from the Listowel Writers' Week.

We're planning daily posts from the Edinburgh Festival this summer and are always on the lookout for other ways to increase our range of coverage. If any Guild members are interested in contributing, drop me a line c/o of the Guild office.

Wilson is the new Children's Laureate

Despite fears among her supporters that literary snobbery would stand in her way, Jacqueline Wilson has ... been named as the new children's laureate, arguably the most popular - and populist - author to hold the position to date.

Following in the footsteps of Quentin Blake, Anne Fine and Michael Morpurgo, the author of Tracy Beaker, Double Act, Bad Girls, The Illustrated Mum and numerous other acclaimed novels for children will receive a bursary of £10,000 and will hold the post for two years.

More about Jacqueline Wilson in The Guardian.

Double re-commission for New Tricks

The BBC has given TV drama New Tricks and double re-commission.

Filming will begin on the eight-part third series later this year. The fourth series of a further eight one-hour episodes is due to be shot in 2006.

It's the first time that more than one series of a drama has been re-commissioned at the same time, but it could be the sign of things to come.

Jane Tranter, Controller, Drama Commissioning, BBC says: "Double commissioning is designed to allow independent production companies the creative freedom to think further forward with their development of long running drama for the BBC.

"This is a clear commitment from us to continuing to secure the very best drama for our audience, and another way of making BBC commissioning more nimble."

New Tricks is made for the BBC by Wall to Wall television. It was created by Roy Mitchell and Nigel McCrery, and writers on the current series are Roy Mitchell, Nick Fisher, Karen Maclachlan, Howard Overman and Danny Miller.

New plays for The Globe?

Dominic Dromgoole, who will replace Mark Rylance as artistic director of The Globe theatre in London at the end of this year, has told The Stage that he wants to find a place for contemporary work alongside the Shakespeare.

"I think the Globe is a very magical place, a very special place. It’s already achieved so much. I would like to see some contemporary playwrights trying to fill that space but Shakespeare will remain as the core. If the modern plays are out there, I would like to take that risk for next season.”

Listowel Writers' Week; 1st-5th June

Annual Irish literary fest Listowel Writers' Week begins next Wednesday, in Listowel, Co. Kerry. Featured events include workshops on everything from crime writing to song writing; lunchtime and evening theatre; book launches and of course readings and/or Q & A sessions with writers - Robert Fisk, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Jack Mapanje, Carol Ann Duffy, Joe Simpson, Lawrence Block, Booker prize-winner D B C Pierre and many many more.

Irish writers at Listowel include Booker nominees Colm Toibín and Roddy Doyle, as well as Ronan Bennett, Michael Longley Pauline McLynn and Ross O'Carroll Kelly.

As a local girl and Guild member, I'll do my best to blog the highlights.

The axing of Westway

Westway, the World Service radio soap will be axed this summer as part of the BBC's latest round of cuts. Madness, says Dominic Dromgoole in Media Guardian (free registration required).

Surely we give money to the BBC so it doesn't have to enter the same frantic and sweaty games as everybody else, and so it can balloon off in new and interesting directions. The purpose of the BBC, I always assumed, was to nurture the wildest plants in our society and to tidy, with a gentle but sure hand, the most hidden corners in our room. Both functions were served by Westway. Why is it letting it go?

johnaugust.com

If you want to get inside the mind of one of Hollywood's top screenwriters,try johnaugust.com.

John, who wrote Go and Swingers and has adapted Big Fish and Charlie And the Chocolate Factory, offers advice to aspiring writers and comments on past, present and future projects.

Black theatre in the West End

Should you venture into the West End at night this week, you'll find not one but two pieces of black British theatre.

Elmina's Kitchen by Kwame Kwei-Armah, originally commissioned by the National and now starring the playwright himself, is the first new black British play to open in the commercial sector. And The Big Life, a riotous ska musical developed at Theatre Royal, Stratford East, is the first black British musical to open in this famous postcode.

More in The Independent.

Behind the scenes on Coronation Street

Are journalists finally waking up to the fact that soap can be taken seriously? After Guardian TV critic Rupert Smith's script for Doctors, comes Barbara Ellen's attempt to write for Coronation Street (The Observer).

A lifelong fan, she goes behind the scenes to try and discover what makes the show tick, and takes along a few scenes she has written to show to series editor Gareth Philips.

When I got home, Philips was kind enough to ring me with a 'critique' of my scenes. Well, I say 'kind'. I ask him to be 'brutally honest' and he takes me at my word. This line is totally overheated. That line Blanche wouldn't say. This line about Audrey and hair dryers is pathetic ('If you're going to do camp, you have to be a lot sharper than that!') That line of Ken's is so weak it's a 'sackable offence' ... And so on.

Indeed, only one line (one!) passed muster (something about rain on a washing day being a shame), but overall I was guilty of 'straying too far into sitcom territory'. 'We are pedantic whiners,' says Philips. 'But I make no apologies for that.' It would seem that I was right about it being harder than it looks to write for Coronation Street (though maybe not as hard as listening to someone tell you that you're absolutely hopeless at it).

Postscript: Ellen calls the Street producer "Tony Young" throughout her article. His name is, in fact, Tony Wood.

Writing topical monologues

Channel 4's new comedy writing competition requires entrants to write a three-minute topical monologue. To help newcomers to the form, we asked comedy writer Dave Cohen for his top five tips.

1. Read the newspapers. Not as daft as it sounds, sometimes a sentence jumps out at you and you come up with an instant punchline.
2. Try and avoid the obvious or the ongoing old story - if there's another joke to be had out of the Blair-Brown leadership battle that hasn't been done yet it'll take you too much time to think of it.
3. Look at the quirkier stories in the news - you can find them in newspapers, on the net, even on ceefax. Often there'll be a simple gag off the back of them.
4. Try and be different. Go off on a tangent, find a topic where you hear the same obvious jokes being made and try and look at the story from a completely different angle.
5. Listen to shows like News Quiz and Parsons and Naylor, the current topical shows on the radio. You can catch up with them on the net. Watch Have I Got News For You. Don't nick the jokes (instant disqualification, because everyone else will have heard them,) but get the feel for the structure of a gag, and listen to how the professionals tackle the week's stories.

Dave is currently working on Have I Got News For You and will be doing a stint on The News Quiz in June/July. He has also written for Rory Bremner, Dead Ringers, Spitting Image and many more.

The Beeb shall inherit the earth

The BBC is embracing the internet revolution, reports Wired.com, putting it well ahead of the US TV networks.

The greatest irony here is that it takes a publicly-funded broadcaster from a cozy liberal democracy to teach America's lumbering, anti-competitive Hollywood dinosaurs what a real, competitive offering looks like.

TV over the internet

A recent BBC test streaming TV programmes live over the internet, leaked out to the public. Is it the start of a broadcasting revolution, asks Paul Hayes in The Stage.

The BBC’s research and development arm, based at Kingswood Warren, was conducting a test for the streaming of the BBC’s television channels to UK-based broadband internet customers, in a move to provide a service similar to that already offered free for all by BBC Radio, whereby all stations are available to listen to live over the internet, with selected programmes stored in a ‘Listen Again’ archive for at least a week following transmission.

New Writing Ventures 2005

Booktrust is seeking entries for New Writing Ventures 2005. There are three categories: fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

New Writing Ventures is a series of national prizes being launched by The New Writing Partnership in collaboration with Arts Council England. It is designed to help launch the careers of writers who are expected to make an impact on the world of books, writers and readers in the coming years. The winner in each of the three categories in 2005 will receive £5,000. In addition, the winners and two shortlisted writers will be given development opportunities by Arts Council England in the region of £5,000 to support bespoke individual development plans which could include workshops, mentoring and professional advice.

The awards are administered by the national charity dedicated to promoting literacy, Booktrust. An independent charity, Booktrust runs several successful reading campaigns and manages numerous literary prizes. The submission deadline is 1 July 2005. The shortlisted authors will be announced in September 2005, and the awards will be presented at the second edition of New Writing Types held in Norwich from 24-28 October 2005

Channel 4 comedy writing competition - details

Further to the announcement earlier this month, Channel 4 have now published details of their comedy writing competition.

Channel 4 are launching a new initiative to find the best new unpublished comedy writer or team of writers. The winner will have the opportunity over a 12 month period to receive writing commissions from leading production companies for a range of Channel 4 comedy and entertainment shows, earning up to a minimum value of £20k.

To take part, submit a three-minute topical monologue and three non-topical sketches of no more than three minutes each in length.

Deadlines for submissions is July 14th.

Finalists will be chosen by a selection panel comprised of Channel 4 commissioners and celebrity comics. The winner will be announced at The Edinburgh Television Festival in August.

Update (20/05/05) Read Dave Cohen's Top 5 tips to writing topical monologues.

Five ventures into original drama

Five is making an ambitious move into home-grown drama, developing a number of shows from leading production companies, as part of a push to redress the poor representation of the genre on the channel.

In a bid to strengthen its reputation in drama and entertainment, the broadcaster has confirmed it is working on programmes for 2006 and has promoted Abigail Webber to the new role of drama editor to oversee the projects.

The full story is in The Stage.

The Play's The Thing - Channel 4

Finally writers are to get their chance in the world of reality TV. Following Operatunity and Musciality, Channel 4 is launching The Play's The Thing, which will see "novice playwrights" submit work to producer Sonia Friedman. The winning script will get a West End run.

There is a report in The Guardian.

"Obviously from a commercial point of view it's completely bonkers," Ms Friedman said. "I have been working in the West End for five years, and there are very few new plays in the West End that haven't already been supported by the subsidised theatre sector or have come from the US. It's primarily because the risks are just too high. With The Play's The Thing, I have been set a challenge and I want to know whether we can fulfil it."

Update 1: There's now a page on the Channel 4 website. The contest is strictly for non-professionals (i.e. people who have never been paid for dramatic writing for radio, television, film or stage). The closing date is 1 July 2005.

Update 2: Edel Brosnan has pointed out in a comment to this post (see below) that by entering the competition, writers surrender all their copyright in the submitted piece.

John Whiting Award

The John Whiting Award, administered by Arts Council England, is intended to help further the careers and enhance the reputations of British playwrights and to draw to public attention the importance of writers in contemporary theatre.

The Award is made to the writer whose play, in the judges' opinion, most nearly satisfies the following description: a play in which the writing is of special quality; a play of relevance and importance to contemporary life; a play of potential value to British theatre.

The judges do not have to regard whether or not the play has received a production, or is likely to receive a production or publication. It must, however, have been written during the years 2004 and/or 2005. The value of the award is £6,000. The judges' decision is final.

Any writer can apply who has had one of the following in the calendar years 2004 or 2005:

1. An offer of an award from the Arts Council (e.g. Grants for the Arts)
2. A commission from one of those theatre companies in receipt of regular or Grants for the Arts subsidy from the Arts Council
3. A premiere production by a theatre company in receipt of Grants for the Arts subsidy from the Arts Council

Translations are not eligible.

Contact Charles Hart (Charles.Hart@artscouncil.org.uk) for further information or an application form .

Meyer-Whitworth Award

Supported by the Royal National Theatre Foundation and dministered by Arts Council England, the Meyer-Whitworth Award is intended to help further the careers of UK playwrights who are not yet established. Candidates will have had no more than two of their plays professionally produced.

The award is made to the writer whose play, in the judges' opinion, most nearly satisfies the following description:

1)a play which embodies Geoffrey Whitworth's dictum that "drama is important in so far as it reveals the truth about the relationships of human beings with each other and the world at large";
2)a play which shows promise of a developing new talent;
3)a play in which the writing is of individual quality.

The judges reserve the right to advise that no script meets the required standards of the award and that therefore the award should not be made.

The value of the award is up to £8,000. The award is given by a panel of three judges whose decision is final.

Contact Charles Hart (Charles.Hart@artscouncil.org.uk) for further information or an application form .

The Children’s Award

The Arts Council is inviting entries for its Children’s Award for playwrights who write for children.

Submitted plays should be suitable for children up to the age of twelve and be at least forty-five minutes long. They must have been produced professionally between 1 July 2004 and 30 June 2005. This may be a first, second or third production of a play written within the past ten years. The playwright must be resident in England.

The value of the award is £6,000.

Contact Charles Hart (Charles.Hart@artscouncil.org.uk) for further information or an application form .

Guild backs BBC strikes

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain has announced its support for a series of one-day strikes by employees at the BBC aimed at preventing large-scale cuts in BBC staffing and operations.

The staff involved are members of BECTU and Amicus (producers, technicians, admin staff, etc) and the NUJ (journalists). The staff unions held ballots which produced large majorities in favour of strikes.

The walk-outs will take place for 24 hours on 23 May and 48 hours on 31 May and 1 June, with a fourth stoppage to be announced to create the "greatest amount of disruption" possible.

In a statement The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain said that it supported the views of the BBC staff unions.

The Guild deplores the 15 per cent across-the-board cuts because they are bound to have a bad effect on the production of drama, sitcom, sketch shows and other genres that involve Guild members.

Virtually all Guild self-employed freelancers rather than employees. Therefore the Guild was not involved in the strike ballots and is not officially part of the unions' "Fight for our BBC" campaign. Under trade union legislation it would be wrong for the Guild to instruct or encourage members to withdraw their labour.

However, Guild General Secretary Bernie Corbett said: “I hope Guild members will show maximum possible support for the staff unions when they take strike action. The dates are known in advance, so if Guild members have meetings or appointments planned for those days, I hope they will rearrange them.

"If they have deadlines on those days, I hope they will refrain from submitting material while staff are on strike – whether this means submitting it a day early or a day late. Many producers and managers will be on strike themselves, so Guild members should consider discussing with them in advance how they can react to the strike situation.

"The minute any Guild member thinks there is a serious problem, they should ring me at the Guild office and I will advise them how to proceed. Also, there are likely to be picket lines at most BBC premises. I would encourage Guild members to join the picket lines if they can, and show their solidarity with the BBC staff. After all, we all want to preserve the best possible public service broadcasting service for our country.”

An Englishman (and his dog) in Brooklyn

For a debut novel that pays tribute to the wonderful power of books, it seems only fitting that the Writers' Guild meets its author on National Library Day. 'National' in this case meaning 'American'. English writer Wesley Stace lives in brownstone Brooklyn. His novel Misfortune is published in the U.K. by Jonathan Cape on May 19. On May 29, Stace appears at the Hay-on-Wye festival, which calls his book a "vivid Gothic masterpiece".

On the day of the interview, a book review in the New York Times calls 18th-century bawdy London a "precursor of our own ambiguous times." Hm. Ambiguous maybe in the sense that American libraries are reporting book-lending stats to the FBI. But a few gay guys on a mission to give the country a make-over or people running out of acronyms to pigeonhole themselves into a sexual category hardly make for bawdiness. In America, sex is a competitive sport. Pleasure doesn't seem relevant, which it was for those 18th-century Clerkenwell barmaids.

Real sexual freedom is the main theme of Misfortune, whose protagonist(e) Rose is raised as a girl by the richest man in 19th England and a surrogate librarian mother. When she hits puberty, the father prefers not to face reality - but after a soul-searching trip to Narcissus-land in a mythic Hellenic part of Turkey, Rose decides to stick to her guns.

Wesley Stace: "Believer magazine published this phenomenal article about the Michigan's Womyn Festival that only women are allowed to attend. Five years ago, they threw out transsexuals, who went on to start Camp Trans. It's like civil war between the two, which is the saddest thing, if you think that's what the sexual revolution and gay rights have led to. Rose would find all that insane. Not because she's old-fashioned, but because of her character.
In this huge world where everything is permissible, everything is still very much pigeonholed. In fact its getting worse pigeonholed, because things are easier to describe and you can find exactly what you want on the internet. Twenty years ago, you would have a hard time finding American fans of English football. Now you can even find the people in New York who support Arsenal."

Misfortune grew out of the ballad Miss Fortune that Wesley Stace wrote for his alter ego John Wesley Harding, as part of his long-standing career as a singer/songwriter with a loyal American fanbase. That was eight years ago. How did it grow into a 544 p. novel?

WS: "I never wrote more than a hundred pages of my other novels. They were all set in the present, they were very memoir-ish and I didn't enjoy writing any of them for even one word. When I was writing in the present tense [interrupts: "What was that?" His dog Grey is digging up something in the garden] I found myself continually distracted by things in the present. I would want to make fun of Diana Ross, Subarus, your iPod and celebrate them and talk about them. Starting this book I knew that I'd bitten off more than I could chew and that I would finish it. I knew it was going to take years. By setting it in the past, I could have a fictional character set in a completely blank space. Then I would start to get pictures in my head. Without all the distractions, I was able to let my characters talk about essential things: life, love, art, books, their relationships, their conflicts."

At times, Misfortune flirts with Dickens' epic swagger and Henry Fielding's verbosity, but ultimately, Rose's voice is strong, confident and contemporary. Early on, Stace, who feels "very much like an English writer', got a priceless bit of advice from Rick Moody.

WS: "He said: 'I'm giving you the exact advice you don't want to hear. This is not where American literature is at right now, so you need to finish it first, and make sure it's fully thought-out.' Misfortune is completely irrelevant to modern American literature. I might have more in common with women writers, like Anne Patchett or Katherine Dunne who write larger books. If you compared that to the thin books written by men who must have agonised over every single word...My book is written in the spirit of: 'I have a big story to tell, let's tell the story'."

Updated theatre rates

The updated minimum rates for theatre writers working under either Theatre Management Association (TMA) or Theatre National Committee (TNC) rates have been published.

Both have been increased in accordance with inflation. Full details are available from the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

Authors peak at 50

The cult of youth is over. Or it should be. New research from American company Lulu, reported by BBC News, has revealed that the average age of writers who topped the hardback fiction section of the New York Times Bestseller List from 1955-2004 was 50.5 years.

Fighting back against the critics

The dangerous proximity of critics and practitioners in the theatre, by Dominic Dromgoole in The Guardian.

There is hardly any art form that enforces such proximity between practitioner and critic as the theatre. Film critics skulk into viewing rooms in the morning; literary critics flop on to sofas at home with the latest novel; art critics stalk around galleries at their leisure. It's only the theatre that forces everyone to sit in the same room, all contributing to the same event. I have great friends whom I have seen less often over the past 10 years than I have seen Michael Billington. Which is as good an argument as any for not working in the theatre. The proximity makes for passion.

Sony Radio Award winners

The Vladimir Nabokov story, Laughter In The Dark, dramatised by Craig Higginson, has won the Gold Award for drama at the annual . Sony Radio Academy Awards Produced by Catherine Bailey, directed by Maria Aitken and with sound design by Howard Davidson, it starred Geraldine Alexander, Roger Allam, Sarah Badel, Ewan Bailey, Lauren Bird, Alan Cox, Tom George, Claire Price, David Shaw Parker
and Tracy Wiles

The judges commented that:

"Maria Aitken's beautifully crafted and paced production of this lesser-known Nabokov tale drew a brilliant performance from Roger Allam, strongly supported by every member of the cast. The atmosphere of cruelty, sleaze and menace was almost palpable, making this a gripping listen."

Laughter In The Dark was made by Catherine Bailey Productions for BBC Radio 3

The Silver Award went to The Permanent Way, by David Hare. (Producer: Catherine Bailey, director: Max Stafford-Clark)

Bronze went to Banana Republic, by Greig Coetzee (Produced and directed by Claire Grove).

Comedy Awards

The Gold Award for comedy The National Theatre Of Brent’s Complete And Utter History
Of The Mona Lisa, written by Patrick Barlow.
- Producers: Bruce Hyman & Helen Chattwell
- Director: Martin Duncan
- Editor: Jake Roberts
- Performers: Patrick Barlow as Desmond Olivier Dingle, John Ramm as Raymond Box
- Additional material: John Ramm & Martin Duncan

The judges commented that

"The National theatre Of Brent continue their singular pursuit of turning the historical into the hysterical. A very funny, very different, beautifully observed and, on occasion delightfully informative romp through the story of the world's most iconic piece of art."

The National Theatre Of Brent’s Complete And Utter History Of The Mona Lisa was an Above the Title productions for Radio 4.

The Silver Award went to The 99p Challenge, written Kevin Cecil, Andy Riley, Tony Roche and Jon Holmes. (Producer and directed by David Tyler)

The Bronze Award went to Clare In The Community, written by Harry Venning & David Ramsden. (Produced and directed by Katie Tyrell)

Novelists in pods

In New York three novelists have taken residence in special pods where they will write in full view of the public. There's a full report in

The New York Times.No cameras will record this voyeuristic experiment, though visitors can peep occasionally (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m). The potential for public humiliation comes not from the perils of constant surveillance, but from the more familiar writers' problem of failing to meet a deadline. Make that deadlines. They will give weekly readings of their works in progress on Saturdays at 8 p.m., and take part in two public discussions scheduled for this coming Sunday and May 22.

Coronation Street wins best soap

Coronation Street was awarded best soap at The British Soap Awards last night, reports BBC News. Long-time Street writer John Stephenson was given a special achievement award.

25 Words or Less: Director’s Cut

There's an interesting piece in the latest issue of Scriptwriter magazine about a new initiative from the UK Film Council - 25 Words or Less: Director's Cut.

Previous 25 Words or Less contests have invited writers to submit pitches for films in certain genres. This time they have asked two leading directors, Danny Boyle and John Crowley, to set the briefs.

The title of "25 Words or Less" is slightly misleading, in fact. You also have to submit a one-page outline and ten pages of script. Writers must be Full Members of the Writers' Guild or have an agent in order to apply.

The Film Council's Development Fund, with the respective director and production partner, will select two writers to receive funding: one to work with Danny Boyle and Pathe UK and one to work with John Crowley and Intermedia UK.

Development funding of £10,000 will be offered to each successful writer to cover a first draft original script and one set of revisions based on the story idea.

The closing date for applications is 11 July 2005.

AuthorHouse launches new partnership with Waterstone's

Self-publishing company, AuthorHouse UK, have announced a new partnership with high street retailer Waterstone's.

Through this partnership, AuthorHouse will provide Waterstone's Self-Publishing Packages which includes, among other things, guaranteed shelf space for self-published authors in Waterstone's flagship store at 311 Oxford Street in London, England.

"Big publishers do not have the monopoly on good books," said Scott Pack, Buying Manager for Waterstone's. "Some of the most exciting books we see nowadays are from small independent publishers or self-published authors."

Customers shopping Waterstone's will notice a new "Self-Published" book section which will display and sell authors' books being published through the AuthorHouse UK/Waterstone's partnership. Self-published authors will have their books stocked a minimum of eight weeks, giving Waterstone's buyers a chance to see how their book sells.

"Retail distribution for any author, especially self-published authors, has always been a challenge, " added Bryan Smith, President and CEO of AuthorHouse. "Our authors have complete control over the look, size, release time, royalties and now, retail distribution of their books."

The announcement comes less than a month after Amazon.com's purchase of self-publisher BookSurge.

Is the self-publishing industry coming of age?

Translators recognised by Man Booker International Prize

A special translators award of £15,000 will be given as part of the Man Booker International Prize 2005, reports The Guardian.

The move has been inspired partly by the judges arriving at a final shortlist in which 10 of the 17 authors wrote in other languages. The winning author would have got £60,000, with nothing, until now, for the translator.

"The judges became increasingly aware of the huge role translators play," said their chairman, John Carey.

Among those in line for the inaugural prize are the translators of Gabriel García Márquez, Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Stanislaw Lem, Naguib Mahfouz, Tomas Eloy Martínez and Kenzaburo Oe. The winning author decides which translator gets the prize, with discretion to split it among several translators.

Edinburgh strike threat

Workers at the King’s and Festival Theatres are being balloted on strike action following seven months of wrangling over job cuts. Talks between management and unions broke down over two compulsory redundancies at the council-owned theatres, which are run by a joint trust, Festival City Theatres Trust.

Strike action could hit the theatres during the Edinburgh Festival this summer. The full story is in The Scotsman.

Brooklyn Books

Brooklyn's brownstone enclave of Park Slope seems to be particularly favoured by writers. Gourmet bread, design furniture, chai lattes and of course bookstores are staples on the main drag, 7th Avenue. Its London equivalent would be Crouch End, with a hint of Hampstead (Prospect Park!).

So when local author David Grand found out that the city-run school (PS 107) frequented by his sons didn't have sufficient funds for a library, he decided to tap into some of Brooklyn's natural resources. Teaming up with the school and 7th Avenue's Community Bookstore, he organised a sold-out series of four readings by Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gary Shteyngart and Darin Strauss.

Less than 100 of NYC's 650 elementary schools have functioning libraries and 60% of New York City's public school students in grades 3 through 8 are reading below grade level. At least PS 107 doesn't have to worry about that anymore. The sold-out series has been enough to fund a $ 35,000 library (including furniture, computers and a librarian).

The May 3rd reading featured Jhumpa Lahiri and Jonathan Safran Foer. The following Q&A was moderated by Vanity Fair editor Elissa Schappell. Since most of the audience seemed to consist of (aspiring) writers, the discussion focussed on craft-related issues.

Q: What is the most important quality a writer should have?
JSF: When I was in college, Joyce Carol Oates told me that a writer should have energy. I've been thinking a lot about Saul Bellow and the energy in each of his sentences, in his books in his whole career. I've only written two books, but it's starting to feel like a Monster Truck Ball; the further you get, the more you have to carry. It's kind of painful. Even keeping parts of your own personality to yourself takes energy.
JL: The one trait I relate to is curiosity. Writing has opened up the world to me. I'm not an immigrant - I came to Boston from London when I was two - but want to know what my parents went through. Most of my protagonists are men because I want to know what it's like to be one. To care about someone enough that you would want to go into their head, that's where the compassion is.

Q: Do you have any special fetish to get you into a writing mode?
JSF: When I was writing my second novel in the New York Public Library, I would listen to Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You on my iPod. I don't even like that song, but it helped me get my subconscious to a place where I would be more receptive.

Q: What's the editing process like for you?
JL: I'm always editing. I was editing even as I was reading the story to you, because it's unpublished and fairly new and I'm keen to get the best possible version out. Somehow in my head a story gets started. Then I usually clear the mess in my work until I think at least it's readable for a few people. Then when I get their feedback I do a few more drafts. There are days when I scrawl something on a piece of paper, maybe that could be considered the writing part, but I don't really distinguish between writing and editing.

Re-working Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

If you liked the big screen version of Hitchhiker's the man who deserves some of the praise (as well, obviously, as original author Douglas Adams) is US scriptwriter Karey Kirkpatrick. And if you didn't like it, then he's probably the man to blame! He's interviewed by Denis Faye for The Writers Guild of America, west

Primarily, it [Douglas Adam's original feature script] was missing a middle, a second act. It was missing things you'd expect, like an active central protagonist with an emotional arc. It's a hard piece of material to weave that into because it started as a series of sketches in a radio play that were turned into a book. A lot of its charm is in how verbose it is and its wordplay, so in that way, it'd sort of be a Monty Python movie, but you can't do that for the amount of money it takes to realize this kind of material. I think that was the thing that was preventing it from ever getting made.

What sci-fi writers think of Star Wars

Think science fiction writers would love Star Wars? Think again, says The New York Times.

One problem with Star Wars, science fiction writers say, is that it is not, ultimately, concerned with science, but rather with a timeless vision of good and evil. Mr. Lucas has said that his story, especially the journeys of his central characters from innocence through trials by fire to wisdom and acceptance, were rooted in Joseph Campbell's comparative studies of world mythologies, and especially in his popular book, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces."

What Mr. Lucas may have seen as eternal, however, science fiction writers have tended to see as antique.

"It started out 30 years behind," said Ursula K. Le Guin. "Science fiction was doing all sorts of thinking and literary experiments on a totally different plane. 'Star Wars' was just sort of fun."

"It takes these very stock metaphors of empire in space and monstrously bad people and wonderfully good people and plays out a bunch of stock operatic themes in space suits," she said. "You can do it with cowboy suits as well."

Science fiction, on the other hand, "is a set of metaphors," Ms. Le Guin said. "It's useful for thinking about certain things in our lives - if society was different in some way, what would it be like?"

Critic turns soap writer

Guardian (free registration required) TV critic Rupert Smith was challenged by Mal Young to write an episode of Doctors. The result can be seen tomorrow...

Understanding the mechanics of TV drama doesn't mean I've become a more charitable critic. If anything, it's made me less inclined to stomach some of the drivel I'm obliged to sit through in my day job. Producers set themselves very high standards, and if those apply to a daytime show like Doctors, they must be doubly important to primetime material. Internal consistency, economy of character, situation and dialogue, the sense of an ending - they're the qualities the Greeks were keen on, and they still rule today. There's a lot of awful TV drama out there that might be improved considerably, if only it didn't trample so gaily over the lot of them.

Tribeca Hooligans

When Elijah Wood was done with Lord of the Rings, he wanted to do something very different. So he signed up for a gritty indie film in which he gets to kick the living daylights out of Man U supporters. Screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, Hooligans is the powerful debut of Lexi Alexander, a former kickboxing champ from Germany who went to LA to become a filmmaker, doing stuntwork to pay for the bills. She took continuing education classes in directing at UCLA and made an Oscar-nominated short film about a boxer.

The average Newyorker's idea of team rivalry is shouting Boston sucks!!! at a baseball game, while downing tepid Bud Lites. No matter how much Yankees fans pretend to hate the BoSox, they will happily squeeze into the same subway car on the way down from the Bronx. Not so in Europe.

Elijah Wood plays Matt Buckner, a talented journalism student who gets kicked out of Harvard through no fault of his own. He flees to London, where his sister lives with a banker-type, who farms out Matt to his kid brother. Through Matt's American eyes, Stateside audiences are introduced to the excitement that comes with football matches - and post-game recreation in the form of a West Ham firm. For those already familiar with football, the film is intruiging for the stylishly choreographed fight scenes, superb acting and the train wreck that is Matt's culture shock. Hooligans has been sold to most European countries, including the U.K., where UIP will release the film later this year.

Filmmaker Lexi Alexander has first-hand experience with firms, having been a member in her native Mannheim. They really didn't take girls, but since she was their kickbox teacher, they couldn't refuse. "The guys would get together on Wednesday evenings to figure out the map of the away-city. When you realise that all of these guys have normal jobs, but this is what they do on the weekends, right there you have a movie, because it's all about character."

Although she received full co-operation from West Ham United, Lexi had less-than-great experiences with the London authorities when it came to shooting there. "They're not really friendly to independent filmmakers. If they do let you shoot, you have to pay a lot of money. They're not as infatuated with the film world; they couldn't care less. When I was shooting my short film in Alabama, the senator would send the local pizzerias to feed us and he would come on the set to ask me what else I needed. That kind of thing could not happen in London." Indeed. The idea of Ken Livingston doling out kebabs on a film set in Southwark seems positvely far-fetched.

The film's producer Deborah del Prete generously gave Lexi an executive producer credit. "My business partner and I like to support female talent. I had been to London and seen the excitement around soccer, but I never realised it was organised around formal groups. Lexi's script gave me an insight in how young males could be sucked into that violence. I have a teenage son and I was always wondering, 'how do guys get involved in that?' So the film is really a cautionary tale."

Update from Tom (03/05/05): The original script for Hooligans was written by Guild member Dougie Brimson.

Macmillan New Writing

Macmillan have launched a New Writing list. It looks like a sort of middle ground between conventional publishing and self-publishing.

Macmillan New Writing is an imprint within the Macmillan group, designed to give an opportunity for new authors to achieve publication. The books are published at the company's expense, no contribution costs will be sought from authors, and royalties on sales will be paid. The books are sold in the market by Macmillan and will be carried in the company's catalogues, but to keep costs to a minimum to allow the maximum number of new writers to get a chance at publication, all arrangements for publication and contracts with authors are standard and there is a minimum of communication between publisher and author.

The Guardian reports that writers will receive 20% of royalties from sales but Macmillan will get all rights to the work.

[literary agent, Natasha] Fairweather described the deal as "shocking". Giles Foden, the author of several novels including The Last King of Scotland (and the Guardian's deputy literary editor), described it as "preying on the unwary", and "publishers trying to pull a fast one over impressionable young authors".

"It seems to be putting more risk on to the shoulders of the writer," [novelist, Hari] Kunzru said. "For writers the important thing is having the publishing control and retaining your rights. I'd publish on the net or think about a writer-led co-operative before going down this road."

Macmillan denies sharp practice. "I have been through over a thousand manuscripts, and, hand on heart, I haven't had a single author who has said it's unfair ... We are doing this with great integrity," Barnard said.

The Art of Screenwriting

A recent seminar in New York, organised by the National Board of Review, brought together six accomplished US screenwriters. The NBR is 95 years-old, has no ties to the industry and celebrates artistic excellence. The seminar took place in a similarly venerable environment, the Harmonie Club, originally a German-Jewish members club, modelled on the British originals at the Strand.

Robert Harling on director Herbert Ross's swift action when the leading actresses in Steel Magnolias threatened to improvise): "Herbert said: 'Ladies, we would treat the text as if it were Chekhov.' When the shoot was finished at four in the morning, I thanked Herbert for his compliment, to which he replied: 'I said to play it as if it were Chekhov, I'm not saying it is.

Richard LaGravenese on [British] reserve: "Editing and writing are very similar processes. There is a scene in Fisher King in which one character really explodes. Director Terry Gilliam was really uncomfortable with the emotions, so he cut half of the scene focusing only on the other character. His English editor also thought the scene was too emotional. Nowadays people are so afraid of emotions. They pull back, thinking everything will be carried by the actors, by looks, but instead it's just empty."

Jay Presson Allen on working with Hitchcock: "He encouraged me to cut whole scenes where people just sit and talk. I learned from him about visual compression. I wrote scene after scene for him, but at some point he would say: 'Why don't we show a fight and then the next shot is a flower with a card that says 'Congratulations'. Learning to go from A to B like that was just bliss."

Women on top in Hollywood - the NY take

The Tribeca Film Festival in New York is unspooling with a whopping 600 films. At least as many parties are unleashed throughout the city. A brunch organized by Dutch cultural attachee Jeanne Wikler celebrated Holland's contribution to the festival.

One of the guests was Terry Lawler, executive director of New York Women in Film & Television, who commented on the New York Times article about the rise of women in Hollywood. Although she was happy to see ink dedicated to the subject, she didn't share the view suggested by the article that the glass ceiling is now a thing of the past and that Hollywood is a model for other industries to copy in terms of female power. Lawler fired off a letter to the New York Times and her mailbox was flooded with emails from the filmmaking community voicing similar concerns.

Diana Evans - a chip off the UEA block

Diana Evans, shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers, is another success story from the University of East Anglia's writing programme. However, in The Independent Russell Celyn Jones, professor of creative writing at Birkbeck College, warns students not to raise their expectations too high.

It might be useful to compare one day the number of graduates from MA creative writing programmes who make a career in writing, with graduates of art, music and drama schools. About 80 per cent of creative writing graduates do not become published authors. Just think if that was the statistic for medical schools.

Women on top in Hollywood

Gail Berman's appointment as the head of Paramount Pictures' creative team means that four of the six major Hollywood studios now have women in the top creative decision-making roles, reports The New York Times.

Though men still figure most prominently in the corporate echelons of the media companies that own the studios, and talent agencies like William Morris and Creative Artists Agency are still male dominated, these women, who over the years have fought and fostered one another as part of a loose sisterhood, have finally buried the notion that Hollywood is a man's world.

E4 coming to Freeview

Channel 4 will make its digital channel E4 free to air on the Freeview platform from next month, reports BBC News.

While the schedules will initially be dominated by the new series of Big Brother, E4, which is aimed at young people, also screens homegrown comedy such as Peep Show and Green Wing.

There are currently five million homes in the UK with Freeview.

Update (19/05/05): The latest news is that E4 will launch on Freeview on 27 May, for the launch of Big Brother 6.

Keating wants more drama on BBC 2

BBC 2 Controller, Roly Keating, has pledged to make more original drama for the channel, reports The Stage.

Pointing to the channel’s past success with shows such as nineties hits Our Friends in the North and This Life, he acknowledged it is missing a similar style of contemporary, original and imaginative drama.

Keating added that he hoped a key legacy of his time as controller would be the development of the channel’s distinctive drama profile with new writers and series but conceded his plans would take time to filter through to screens.

Write Live 2005

Write Live 2005 invites any West Midlands-based playwright to submit a full-length play, written for theatre. The submission will then be considered for the Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s Attachment Scheme for Playwrights, and there is also the possibility of the writer receiving development from SCRIPT through mentoring and showcasing.

The deadline is 13 May 2005.

BBC Drama Series Writing Academy 2005

The BBC has launched a new initiative to train writers for long-running drama series.

The BBC Drama Series Writing Academy 2005 will take on eight writers for a year of full-time training focusing on Doctors, Casualty, Holby City and EastEnders.

Applicants must have already had at least one film, television or radio drama script produced or one theatre piece performed professionally.

Applications must be received by 9 May, with the course due to start in September 2005.

TV's lost generation

It doesn't seem very long ago that we were all worried about how much television teenagers were watching. Not any more. The problem, for the TV industry at least, is that viewing hours among all young people are declining. While children's TV is protected by regulation, programming for teenagers has been in decline, with most 11-18 year-olds now choosing adult shows as their favourites.

This "lost generation" of TV viewers was the subject of an interesting debate at BAFTA in London on Monday evening, with contributions from a range of industry insiders, as well as from young people themselves.

The bottom line is that, as one audience member put it, while children have grown increasingly sophisticated as TV consumers, the regulations covering content have not kept pace. Programme-makers steer clear of controversy, making it difficult for children's TV to tackle the kind of issues that teenagers are interested in.

The teenagers themselves said that they wanted more comedy and drama aimed at them, but, as producer Richard Langridge pointed out, slots in the schedule are not being made available. He, and several other contributors, argued that BBC 3, which was originally targeted at those 16+ but is now aiming for people aged over-24, had been a missed opportunity.

Elaine Sperber, Head of CBBC Drama, admitted that the teenage audience was being short-changed, and said that the BBC was looking at new ways of delivering content to them.

Could there be a new teen channel? Trouble and Nickelodean have been very successful, and many of the young people in the audience complained about the lack of a homemade equivalent.

The UK can do teen programming. Hollyoaks is a mainstream hit, and As If showed that more experimental approaches can also succeed. What is needed, it was agreed, is commitment from senior management, especially within the BBC, to make slots (6.30 on BBC 2, for example) and money available.

Representatives from Ofcom said that they had already commented on the lack of programming for teenagers. The consensus at BAFTA on Monday night was that a concerted campaign was required to persuade the broadcasters to do something about it.

In defence of short plays

Playwright David Eldridge in The Guardian hits back at Michael Billington for his argument that short plays are damaging theatre.

He [Billington] hints that new dramatists aren't serious, but these forms are created out of the serious endeavour of telling stories in the most truthful, effective and expressive way possible. The drama we are creating is often more experiential and variations upon the single action are almost always the right way of telling these stories. One admired dramatist has said to me that the interval has always seemed mad for a lot of her plays because of their subjective nature - and she won't throw everything she's carefully built up to give the punters a packet of crisps and a gin and tonic. The works of Beckett and Pinter are in our culture now, and for Billington to infer that we ought to hack away at old-fashioned forms that don't express the truth of our stories is pure poppycock. What about Sarah Kane's first play, Blasted - should she have conceived her material as a traditional well-made play?

Litblogs

A guide to litblogs, the new internet phenomenon proving that new media and books do mix, by Joy Press in Village Voice.

Free step-outlines and treatments

Free from Screentalk, step outlines and treatments from feature films including China Town, Star Wars and Terminator.

Theatre writers and directors

The secrets of a successful working relationship between theatre writers and directors will be explored in a Writers' Guild event at RADA in London on 17 May. Full details are on the Writers' Guild website.

Will the government back amateur theatre?

Charles Vance in The Stage asks whether the next government will take up the recommendations of a DCMS select committee report stating that:

“We believe that, as in sport, consideration should be given to the public policy gains that can be demonstrated as a result of participation in drama and a strategic approach to the funding of grassroots, or community theatre should be developed. This should take place as a partnership between the amateur sector, Arts Council England, regional theatres, local government and schools.

“As a first step, proposals for a National Drama Association - with public funding - to bring the amateur sector together should be properly formulated and given serious consideration. A further initiative might be the development of local arts forums, including theatre and amateur theatre, aimed at maximising the use of local arts expertise and facilities for the benefit of the community.”

Reviews or readers?

Steve Stern's latest book, The Angel of Forgetfulness, has received rave reviews, reports Peter Edidin in the New York Times but sales are slow. So what's it like to be loved by critics but ignored by readers?

Mr. Stern said he would love to have a best seller. But having had the good fortune to find his life's work in Memphis many years ago, he doesn't really want to press his luck. "I just want to get away with it," he said. "I just want to get my next book published, and my next."

John Yorke's plans for EastEnders

John Yorke, controller of continuing drama series and head of independent drama, tells Stuart Jefferies in Media Guardian (free registration required) why, having returned to the BBC from Challen 4, he still believes in EastEnders.

For the past three months, Yorke has had EastEnders back on his viewing schedule (he reckons to watch 340 hours of TV a year). What went wrong with it while you were away? "Soaps have to be character-led. It became a bit too plot-led. It was the Brookside syndrome - just pursuing sensationalism. That's very dangerous. Audiences just don't believe you after a while." Why then not kill off EastEnders, just as Brookside was terminated while you were at Channel 4? "You couldn't do that! EastEnders saved the BBC." But that was 20 years ago. "No, it is part of the BBC1's DNA now, it's vital to the channel.

BBC to spend an extra £21m on TV shows

The BBC will spend an extra £61m on programmes, including £21m on television shows, it has announced in its annual statement. The corporation's programme budget will increase to £2.178bn this year, with extra drama and comedy on BBC TV.

It will air fewer repeats, makeover and lifestyle shows in BBC One's peak time.

The full story is on BBC News.

Soaps and illness

Next time you write a medical storyline for a soap, spare a thought for the GPs. As BBC News reports, in a new survey more than nine out of 10 GPs claimed to have seen patients reporting symptoms based on what they had seen on TV or read in newspapers and magazines.

Pam Prentice, joint chief executive of Developing Patient Partnerships, said: "These results may be bad news for GPs right now, but they show soaps' enormous potential for influencing people's health behaviour in a positive way."

Channel 4 comedy writing competition

Channel 4 have announced that they will launch a brand new comedy writing initiative in mid-May.

The new scheme will offer fresh writing talent the chance to win a one-year contract with the channel worth £20,000 and the opportunity to write for a range of Channel 4 comedy and entertainment shows.

Entrants will be required to submit a three minute topical monologue for a quintessential C4 show of their choice and three non-topical sketches of no more than three minutes each in length.

We'll post full details as soon as they are announced.

Update (19/05/05): Details have now been announced.

Johnathan Young moves to Talkback

Talkback Thames’ incoming chief executive Lorraine Heggessey has hired Johnathan Young as head of drama following Paul Marquess’ departure.

Young, a former Channel 4 drama commissioner responsible for shows such as Hollyoaks, Brookside and Teachers, is already working at Talkback producing a second series of Murder Investigation Team and is due to begin filming hospital drama Golden Hour, both for ITV1.

Having directed and produced on EastEnders in the mid-nineties he has built up significant experience in long-running drama series. He later worked on the BBC’s Casualty and played a role in setting up its spin-off Holby City. He was executive producer on Jimmy McGovern’s controversial Channel 4 drama tackling the events of Bloody Sunday as well as Trust with Robson Green for BBC1 - both made by Cracker co-creator Gub Neal’s independent production company, Box TV.

More from The Stage.

BAFTA (part 2)

There were in fact three big awards for Guild members at the BAFTA TV Awards on Sunday.

Paul Abbott (Shameless) won the Best Drama Series, and Guy Hibbert (Omagh) won the best Single Drama.

In addition, Alan Plater was presented with the Dennis Potter Award for writing.

Children's writers over-50

Saga magazine is looking for new writers aged 50 or over who can write for older children. The winner of their competition will have their book published by HarperCollins.

Completed manuscripts of a minimum of 20,000 words and a maximum of 60,000 words in length should be presented with a synopsis of 500 words and sent to the address which will be published in the September issue of Saga magazine together with the official entry form.

The closing date for entries will be January 31, 2006. the winner will be notified by the end of March 2006 and announced in the May 2006 issue of Saga Magazine. The winner’s book will be published in spring 2007.

First-time novelists

Today's new writers lack life experience, argues Robert McCrum in The Observer.

Once upon a time, the writing of books was part of a crowded and vigorous life producing sturdy, oak-like prose. Now, it it often performed by writers for whom it is an end in itself, and for whom the novel has become a strange kind of obsession. No harm in that for the best, of course, but for the majority, the exclusion of everyday concerns yields balsa-wood prose that's detached from the stuff of existence.

First novels used to be a cause for celebration. Now, more likely, it is the third, or even the fifth novel that signals the arrival of a new writer of consequence, someone whose creative stamina will stay the course.

Guild's website back up

The Guild's website is back up.

The hosting company suffered a major technical failure at the end of last week but everything is now restored. Apologies for the inconvenience.

The new compressionism

An ugly phrase, I know, but its what Michael Billington in The Guardian calls the fashion for ever-shorter plays. Is the trend for 90-minute theatre hurting theatre?

I am not asking for a standard structure or a return to the days of the two-interval play. But what I miss is the polyphonic richness of which drama is capable, or the complexities of character revealed by an unfolding narrative. One reason why people are flocking to Don Carlos is that it provides exactly the kind of stimulus so much modern drama lacks: exploration of ideas through character, examination of the manifold selves that make up individuals, the thrilling collision of private and public worlds.

Orange Prize shortlist

The shortlist has been announced for the Orange Prize for fiction.

The nominations for the award, which is open to novels in English written by women, are:

• Billie Morgan by Joolz Denby
  
• Old Filth by Jane Gardam
  
• The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman
  
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
  
• Liars and Saintsby Maile Meloy
  
• We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
  

BAFTA winners

Paul Abbott's Shameless continued its domination of award ceremonies on Sunday, winning the BAFTA for best drama series.

Sex Traffic, by Abi Morgan, won the best drama serial. Coronation Street was crowned best continuing drama.

Is British film dead?

Screenwriter and Guild member Jonathan Gems argues in The Independent that a once prolific industry is being strangled by Hollywood and apathetic UK governments.

When the UK Film Council boasted recently about the amazing success of British films, most of us felt like committing suicide. None of the films the UK Film Council was bragging about were British! Most of them were made by four foreign studios: Pathé, Warner Bros, Disney and Universal - all companies adept at exploiting British grants to subsidise their movies.

Writers' Guild website

We've had a serious technical problem with the Writers' Guild website (www.writersguild.org.uk)

We're working on getting it fixed but I'm afraid that for the moment it is out of action.

Writers' Nexus

Writers' Nexus is a site where writers can post work (for a fee of £35) to be read by agents and publishers, who can browse for free.

I've no idea if it's worth the money, but they do have a very good links page. (As recommended by Jack Schofield in The Guardian)

Bertha the Earth Truck

Guild member Mark Gamon has created what he's calling a blook - a cross between a blog and a book, Bertha the Earth Truck. The modern version of Dickens-style serialisations? The one thing you must remember is to start reading from the bottom.

Creative Archive Licence

The BBC, Channel 4, the British Film Institute and The Open University have launched the Creative Archive Licence.The Creative Archive Licence is inspired by the Creative Commons system, a flexible copyright arrangement pioneered in the US.

The Creative Archive Licence will give a new generation of media users legal access to material which they can use to express their creativity and share their knowledge - all completely free of charge.

The Licence has been launched following a commitment in the BBC's Building Public Value document, in which it pledged to "help establish a common resource which will extend the public's access while protecting the commercial rights of intellectual property owners."

The hope is that pilot download schemes, to be launched by the partners, will help fuel creativity activity across Britain, as people utilise the footage in personal projects, classroom presentations and their own artistic creations.

At present the BBC is makng footage from natural history and factual programmes available under the licence, while Channel 4 has commissioned a selection of content.

The BFI will be releasing silent comedy, early literary adaptations, newsreel footage and archive footage of British cities in the early 20th century.

Copyright issues for modern drama and comedy footage have yet to be resolved.

In the latest issue of the Writers' Guild's magazine, UK Writer, Guild General Secretary Bernie Corbett warns writers against using Creative Commons licenses and advises them to hang on to their rights.

BBC unions plan strike ballot

Unions at the BBC are to ballot members for strike action over plans to cut up to 4,000 posts at the corporation.

The decision came after a three-hour meeting between unions and the BBC's director general, Mark Thompson.

Bectu, Amicus and the National Union of Journalists said the BBC had refused to meet their demand that there should be no compulsory redundancies.

More details from BBC News.

Saga writing competition

Arrow Books and ASDA have announced a major national competition to find the next big saga author – a writer who combines superb storytelling, unforgettable characters and a vivid sense of time and place.

The competition will be launched on 4th July 2005 and Rosie Harris’s new novel At Sixes and Sevens will contain details of the competition. At Sixes and Sevens will have featured space in store and be on sale exclusively with ASDA for 2 weeks prior to the official 21st July publication date.

Arrow and ASDA are inviting submissions of 4000 words or roughly 2 chapters, along with a synopsis for the rest of the book and ideas for other novels. The closing date is December 2005 and submissions will be judged by a panel including the editorial team at Arrow, author Rosie Harris and Toby Bourne of ASDA. The winner will be announced in January 2006 and the book will then be published in 2007 by Arrow and available in ASDA stores nationwide. ASDA have committed to support with major space in-store and a feature in ASDA magazine.

For further information please call Charlotte Bush on 020 7840 8613
or email cbush@randomhouse.co.uk

David Greig interviewed

Playwright David Greig (Pyrenees, The American Pilot) interviewed by Leo Benedictus in The Guardian.

Greig now averages around five new plays a year, an astonishing rate. This is partly just good financial planning. "There are very few playwrights I can think of that don't go through a period of being very unfashionable while they're alive," he says, with evident trepidation. But does he wish he could slow down? "I'm always proud of the work," he begins carefully. "I genuinely never let the work be shit, and I always push myself, but I wouldn't write so much if I didn't have to make a living. It's a good discipline, but I would dearly like to work at a slightly slower pace. Although that's partly becoming possible anyway."

Evan Katz on writing 24

Talking to 24 writer and co-executive producer Evan Katz about his hit Fox show, you can't help but feel a bit like the show is real. As he talks, you begin to feel the same gravity pull you in that seems to affect those involved with the show. It's the same intense, suspended disbelief that makes the show a terror-infused, hyper-addictive smash.

An interview for the Writers Guild of America west, by Dylan Callaghan

Amazon buys BookSurge

Last week we reported that online retailer Amazon.com was considering a move into electronic publishing. Now it has bought BookSurge, reports The New York Times, one of America's biggest print-on-demand companies.

Amazon.com declined to share specific details about the acquisition - its second in five years. "We feel we can do great things together. We're just not saying what that might be," said Patty Smith, a company spokeswoman. Nonetheless, Amazon appears a good match for BookSurge's would-be authors, because it attracts perhaps more literary types than any other electronic commerce site.

ITV strike battle continues

Strikers at...ITV will target ratings-winning soap operas "Coronation Street" and "Emmerdale" if management refuses to increase a pay offer following Friday's walk out, union leaders said Friday.

You can get the full story from Reuters.

Saul Bellow tributes

Often described as a writers' writer, Saul Bellow has been praised across the press since his death last week. Of particular interest, I thought were pieces by Christopher Hitchens in The Observer and James Wood in The Guardian.People disagreed about Bellow's final stature, but no one really disagreed with the quality of the prose. Most writers are called "beautiful" at one time or another, as most flowers are called pretty, but there are never very many really great prose writers alive. Bellow was one, to my mind the greatest of American prose stylists in the 20th century - and thus one of the greatest in American fiction. It was a prose for all seasons; it seemed to do more of what one wanted from prose than any other competitor. It was intensely lyrical and musical, its rhythms a pressing mingle of Yiddish, American, English, and Hebrew (after Lawrence, Bellow was the most biblical of modern writers in English); but it was also grounded in speech, and seemed incapable of preciousness (unlike, say, the lovely but often pampered lustres of an Updike); it was witty, metaphysical, sensuous, playful. Above all, Bellow saw the world anew. When he looked, say, at icicles hanging from a hospital roof, he saw them resembling the teeth of a large fish, and then saw the "clear drops burning at their tips". Burning! When he described a younger man helping an old man across a street, he noted the "big but light elbow" of the old man. Big but light! There indeed was a writer attending to the world, attending to the body, missing nothing.

Gallagher turns to children's TV drama

Eileen Gallagher, managing director of Shed Productions (Bad Girls, Footballer's Wives) has written her first children's series, reports The Times. The Fugitives is a £1 million conspiracy thriller called The Fugitives for ITV, about a 12-year-old boy who suspects that he is being used by his own father in a cloning experiment.

The Watchmen to leave Pinewood

The producers of The Watchmen, a $120 million blockbuster Hollywood film, are poised to pull the plug on producing the sci-fi epic at Pinewood Studios because of the rising cost of making films in Britain and uncertainty over government tax breaks.
Paramount Pictures, a division of Viacom, the films-to-theme parks conglomerate, is looking for alternative locations for the film after deciding that it will be too expensive to make in Britain. One option under consideration is to move the film back to Hollywood, where it would be cheaper to make.

More in The Times.