PressNew York Post, May 21, 2010
Starr report
By Michael Starr
Nora Ephron and 30 writers/actors meet their PencilPAL 5th grade class for the first time today (PS 16 in Corona, Queens) . . . Cory Monteith, Mary Salling ("Glee") at Blue Fin . . . Con grats to Andrea Canning (ABC News) and husband Tony Bancroft on the arrival of Charlotte Brewster.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/starr_report_aDxjEIRppNwoxPXrWE...
Post-Gazette, May 13, 2010
Actor coming to class in Mt. Lebanon
By Lindsay Carroll
With many high schoolers looking forward to proms and graduation, reading great works of literature is rarely a priority at this time of year.
But Friday, at Mt. Lebanon Senior High School, a popular actor and screenwriter will read a John Steinbeck literary classic with the hope of reinvigorating high school students about the importance of literature and the art of storytelling.
The event is paid for by the Actors and Writers Book Club, a national program which brings an actor and a writer into high schools to read and discuss works of literature. It's an initiative of the Writers Guild of America, East Foundation, which is part of the union that represents writers in news and entertainment industries.
The foundation's goal is to encourage reading, writing and storytelling among high school students -- a generation more familiar with the language of social networking, text messages and Tweets.
Students in English and advanced theater classes at the high school will gather at two assemblies Friday morning for the event at the school's Fine Arts Theatre. It is not open to the public.
Actor and producer William Baldwin, who played roles on the television show "Gossip Girl" and in the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" as well as others, will read a selection John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" to students. Then, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Susanna Styron, whose work includes scripts for Lifetime movies and the documentary "Shadrach," will discuss literature from a writer's perspective.
Book club founder Thomas Kelly said he came up with the idea to reach out to high school students because of his own experiences growing up in a blue-collar family.
Although Mr. Kelly said he wouldn't necessarily expect Friday's event to change lives, he said it could influence students' views on literature.
"It doesn't take a huge event to change a kid's perspective on things," he said.
Adolescents who might not be motivated to read in school might instead read magazines, e-mails and websites outside of school, according to a 2007 National Institute for Literacy study. The challenge, then, is to bring that interest into the classroom.
James Walsh, who supervises Mt. Lebanon School District's English curriculum, said that it's important for young people to appreciate the art of storytelling.
While young people are savvy consumers of media and Hollywood productions, Dr. Walsh said educators might be "losing" young people when it comes to literature and the power of language.
"Having a professional actor take some of his experiences with high school literature could add elements of importance and value to what we're doing with them on a regular basis," he said.
Mr. Baldwin chose to read a book that he said was an important part of his education in literature. Similarly, Mt. Lebanon students have John Steinbeck's works as required reading: "The Pearl," "Of Mice and Men," "Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden."
Dr. Walsh estimated about 150 students will attend.
Mr. Kelly said he chose to ask Mt. Lebanon to host the event because Pittsburgh is a location that might not have as much access to arts programs, as do cities such as Los Angeles or New York. Although this is the second Book Club event, he hopes eventually to host them monthly at high schools around the country.
AFL-CIO Blog, May 12, 2010
Former Baltimore Sun Employees Find Voice Online
by James Parks
A new website gives voice to the more than 60 Baltimore Sun writers and staff who were laid off in massive cuts during the spring of 2009. At Telling Our Stories: The Days of the Baltimore Sun, launched May 12, the former Sun employees share their stories and bittersweet memories.
The site grew out of a project conceived and funded by the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) Foundation fellowship program in collaboration with the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild (WBNG).
The fellowship program gives the laid-off Sun workers an opportunity to tell a story arising out of their personal experiences during their time at newspaper. Participating fellows include reporters, editors, critics, copy editors, photographers, designers, advertising salespeople and market researchers. In addition to the essays, poems, photos and videos featured on the site, former Sun employees also designed the website and edited the submissions.
Here’s Steve Auerweck, a 24-year Sun employee who first worked as an editor on the business desk and then as a manager of newsroom technology:
I think the important thing about this site is that it puts real people behind the numbers. It will let the readers of Baltimore know what they’ve lost.
The Sun fellows were encouraged to express their feelings in their own way, resulting in a site that’s an often moving compilation of personal memoirs, says former WBNG President William Salganik..
Submissions include copydesk chief John McIntyre’s essay on how it feels to have to look for a job after more than 30 years in journalism and graphic artist Fe Fung Hung’s artistic meditation on the perfect vacation. There’s Ebony Page-Harvey’s poem about her last day as a classified ad salesperson and photojournalist Elizabeth Malby’s video profile of a longtime Sun photographer.
WGAE Foundation President Tom Fontana says:
The Baltimore Sun fellowship embodies the Foundation’s mission-to perpetuate the art and craft of storytelling. By publishing their personal stories on this site, the fellows’ voices can now be heard loud and clear by people not only in Baltimore but around the world. As writers, we understand the power of words. We’re happy this fellowship program and new website are helping these fellows harness the power of words to get through this difficult time.
More Baltimore Sun Press
BIG JOURNALISM
Must Read of the Day – Stories from Fired Baltimore Sun Staffers
http://bigjournalism.com/mwalsh/2010/05/13/must-read-of-the-day-stories-from-fired-baltimore-sun-staffers/
DCRTV
http://dcrtv.com/
MEDIA GAGGLE:
http://www.mediagaggle.com/articles/what-became-of-one-third-of-baltimore-suns-staff/
POYNTER.ORG
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=183245
MEDIA BISTRO’s MEDIA JOBS DAILY
http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/newspapers/whats_become_of_the_exsun_staffers_161387.asp
BUSINESS INSIDER:
http://www.businessinsider.com/laid-off-baltimore-sun-staffers-tell-their-stories-on-new-website-2010-5
BALTIMORE BREW:
http://baltimorebrew.com/blog/2010/05/12/laid-off-by-the-sun-journalists-speak-out-on-new-wesbite/
MAYNARD INSTITUTE JOURNAL-ISMS
http://www.mije.org/richardprince/station-turned-down-video-police-beating
New York Magazine, May 4, 2010
Christopher Meloni and the Oz Cast Stage a Reunion, Hold the Nazi Rape
On Sunday night, Oz creator Tom Fontana reunited the old prison gang from his hyperintense HBO drama onstage at 59E59 Theaters for a special production. The erstwhile Emerald City bunch (including Law & Order: SVU's Christopher Meloni and 30 Rock beeper salesman Dean Winters) took their places onstage to Oz's clanging, percussive theme song, which elicited screams of delight from the crowd of die-hard fans who were now Pavlovianly primed to see some cell-block violence. But this would be no rape down memory lane; rather, the actors would be playing themselves — kinda — in a reading of Fontana's new metafictional one-act farce, The Godfather, Part IV, all for a benefit for the nonprofit theater company Primary Stages and the Writers Guild of America East Foundation.
Eamonn Walker (who played activist Muslim prisoner Kareem Said on Oz) narrated the action of the play, which centered around a coffee-shop get-together of real-life friends Terry Kinney (who played Oswald Correctional’s do-gooding liberal administrator Tim McManus), Winters (inmate Ryan O’Reilly), Lee Tergesen (milquetoast turned menace Tobias Beecher), and Meloni (Beecher's cellmate/lover/betrayer Chris Keller). The bull session eventually finds Winters and Tergesen plotting to re-create The Godfather’s famed horsehead-in-bed scene, with the egomaniacal Meloni as the victim, and Kinney volunteering to film the action for an upcoming documentary.
Why? Because (in the play, mind you) it turns out that in the years since Oz’s 2003 sign-off, Meloni has become a preening Master Thespian, who in front of his sporadically employed buddies feigns exasperation at having to work every day for the past eleven years on a hit. (After the show, Tergesen’s would-be tormentor emphatically sought to set the record straight: “That wasn’t the real Christopher Meloni!” Tergesen jokingly disagreed: “He’s such a dick!”) In the production’s most hilarious art-imitates-life-imitates-art turn, Tergesen remains in thrall to Meloni just as his Beecher was to his Keller. “It’s about putting our characters on display, in terms of Chris manipulating me, and me being all sweet and innocent … 'cause I’m definitely not sweet and innocent,” Tergesen later elaborated. “But it shows how tight we were and how we just beat the shit out of each other, and always just having a laugh, no matter what.” Alas, all of Godfather’s violence was comic, verbal, and passive-aggressive — no stabbings, stranglings, or forced sodomy for nostalgia's sake. But that, as well as the casts’ repeated cutups and flubbed line readings, were not only tolerated but relished by the equally tickled audience.
Post-show, Meloni attempted to nail down the show’s enduring devotion among both its fans and its ensemble. “There was something very visceral about the show," he said. "Oz was a combination of brutality, imagination, poetry, and humanity all rolled into this thing. It was groundbreaking.” The show's creator and Emmy-winning guiding force, Fontana, hilariously subbed in for Julianna Marguiles at the last minute; she was to play herself as Tergesen’s former and Meloni’s current squeeze, but got held up in D.C. after attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner. He said he wrote the play five years ago “for the guys” (the cast also included Zjelko Ivanek, who played diabolical Maryland governor James Devlin on the show) and decided to mount it for the once-every-seven-years benefit. Asked how he enjoyed breaking down the fourth wall for the riotous production, Fontana quipped, “I think my whole life is metafiction, but what do I know?”
More Godfather Press:
TV Worth Watching
Tom Fontana Reunites "Oz" Cast, Raises Money for WGAE Foundation and Puts a Stuffed Moose's Head in Play, In a One-Day NY Stage Play Called "The Godfather Part IV"
Broadway World
Photo Coverage: Meloni, Tergesen & Winters in Primary Stage's GODFATHER IV Reading
New York Post
Blizzard of 'Oz'
British groupies fly to see Meloni
Urban Daddy
Godather IV
Variety
There's nothing like sneaking a severed horse's head into somebody else's bed in the name of a good cause.
BroadwayWorld.com, April 21, 2010
'OZ's Meloni, Winterset al. Lead Primary Stage's GODFATHER IV Benefit, 5/2
by BWW News Desk
Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Founder & Executive Producer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) concludes its celebratory 25th Anniversary Season with a special celebrity benefit stage reading performance of Godfather IV written by Emmy Award-winner Tom Fontana ("St. Elsewhere," "OZ"), with original music by Stephen Elkins. The reading is a collaborative effort between Primary Stages and the Writers Guild of America, East Foundation, for which Fontana is Foundation president. Proceeds from the reading will benefit both organizations.
The celebrity cast features Christopher Meloni ("Law & Order SVU," "OZ"), Lee Tergesen (HBO's "Generation Kill," "OZ", "Desperate Housewives"), and Dean Winters ("Life on Mars," "30 Rock," "Rescue Me," "OZ"). Directed by Linda Laundra, the celebrity ensemble will feature Mike Doyle, Zeljko Ivanek, Terry Kinney, David Laundra, Kristin Rohde, Eamonn Walker, and Catherine Wolf, with a special appearance by Mr. Fontana (all subject to continuing availability).
The special two performance fundraising event is set for Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street).
Godfather IV finds three actors from the HBO Series "OZ" sitting in a diner, talking about their careers and the works of various screen immortals. When one of the trio (Chris Meloni) attacks the plausibility of the Jack Woltz scene in the movie The Godfather, the other two (Lee Tergesen, Dean Winters) decide to "re-enact" the
Playbill, Wednesday, April 21, 2010
"Oz" Stars Meloni, Tergesen and Winters Test Horse-Head Ploy in Godfather IV Readings
By Ernio Hernandez
A horse head will come into play when former "Oz" stars Christopher Meloni, Lee Tergesen and Dean Winters play themselves in a celebrity benefit staged reading of Tom Fontana's Godfather IV May 2 at 59E59 Theaters. Primary Stages and The Writers Guild of America, East Foundation team to present the fundraiser and will share the proceeds. Linda Laundra will direct the work that features original music by Stephen Elkins.
Meloni ("Law & Order SVU"), Tergesen ("Desperate Housewives") and Winters ("Life on Mars,"30 Rock") will lead a celebrity ensemble that also features Mike Doyle, Zeljko Ivanek, Terry Kinney, David Laundra, Kristin Rohde, Eamonn Walker and Catherine Wolf with a special appearance by Fontana (artists are subject to availability).
Godfather IV “finds three actors from the HBO Series 'Oz' sitting in a diner, talking about their careers and the works of various screen immortals," according to an announcement. "When one of the trio (Meloni) attacks the plausibility of the Jack Woltz scene in the movie 'The Godfather,' the other two (Tergesen, Winters) decide to 're-enact' the scene by sneaking a horse's head into Meloni's bed. Unexpected complications arise."
Two performances of Godfather IV will play May 2 at 3 PM and 7 PM at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters.
Tickets ($75 for premium seating, $50 for general) can be purchased by contacting development assistant Rebecca Aparicio at (212) 840-9705, ext. 223 or via email to rebecca@primarystages.org.
For more information on Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters, at 59 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Ave.), visit primarystages.org.
More Godfather IV Press
Theater Mania:Christopher Meloni, Lee Tergesen, Dean Winters, et al. Set for Godfather IV Benefit Readings
Playbill:“’Oz’ Stars Meloni, Tergesen and Winters Test Horse-Head Ploy in Godfather IV Readings”
New York Times (Online):Arts Beat: Once More, With Conviction: ‘Oz’ Stars Coming to Primary Stages
Deadline Hollywood Daily:Primary Stages Fundraiser Mixes Unusual Bedfellows: 'The Godfather' and 'Oz
Best of Broadway:Primary Stages Off-Broadway holds Godfather IV Benefit Reading
ANTAL ZAMBO OF WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY RECEIVES
WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA, EAST FOUNDATION
MICHAEL COLLYER MEMORIAL FELLOWSHIP IN SCREENWRITING
Zambo receives his screenwriting fellowship at the 62nd awards event
at the Hudson Theatre on February 20, 2010
NEW YORK CITY – Antal Zambo has been selected to receive the Writers Guild of America, East Foundation’s (WGAE Foundation) Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting. The fellowship, which is funded by the Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation, is awarded to a student who plans to pursue a career in screenwriting upon his/her undergraduate course of study. The recipient receives a $10,000 stipend to write an original screenplay under the mentorship of prominent screenwriter and WGAE Foundation board member, Marshall Brickman.
“The Foundation’s purpose is to discover voices that have previously been unheard, and the Collyer Fellowship helps us find and support young talent that can potentially become the next generation of screenwriters,” said Tom Fontana, President of the WGAE Foundation. “Antal’s work gives vivid expression to the lives of the people with whom he has lived and worked in Detroit’s complex urban environment.”
Zambo is a senior in the Film Studies program at Wayne State University in Detroit. He was born and raised in Detroit, where his grandparents emigrated from Lithuania immediately after World War II to work in the industrial plants there. Both his father and his uncles worked on Detroit’s automobile assembly lines. Lithuanian cultural traditions were proudly maintained within his family household and Zambo embraced both his Lithuanian and American cultural heritages.
After graduating from high school, he traveled extensively throughout the country for a few years, then returned to Detroit to attend college. His interest in film was sparked while watching 200l: A Space Odyssey and Apocalypse Now at a young age, and he pursued that passion in his studies at Wayne State. His fellowship project, When the Sparrows Come Home, is loosely based on an old Lithuanian folk tale, a reflection of his immigrant roots.
Marshall Brickman says, “Antal has a fresh voice with a unique point of view, rare in someone of his relatively young age. His sensibility is informed by his immigrant background and expressed though an impressively large talent. I look forward to working with him on his screenplay project, When the Sparrows Come Home, and hope I can learn something from him, because it’s not always the teacher who does the teaching or the mentor the mentoring.”
Eleven universities and colleges participated in this year’s Collyer Fellowship nominating process. They are: Binghamton University, Boston University, Buffalo State College, Columbia College Chicago, Georgia State University, Howard University, University of Miami, New York University, Savannah College of Art and Design, Washington University in St. Louis, and Wayne State University. The Collyer Fellowship, founded in 2009, honors Michael Collyer, a distinguished entertainment attorney in New York City who for four decades practiced primarily at his namesake firm Kay Collyer & Boose and specialized in television financing and production. Collyer was perhaps best known as a pioneer in devising legal structures for television syndication distribution, and for international co-productions taking advantage of favorable tax credits and other incentives.
The Charles & Lucille King Family Foundation was established in 1988 to support educational excellence and professional development in the film, television and related media fields, and has provided scholarships to hundreds of outstanding U.S. undergraduate students in these disciplines.
The Writers Guild of America, East Foundation is created to perpetuate the art and craft of storytelling, either by professionals or amateurs, through education and practical experience, on local, national and global levels; to find the next generation of writers in fiction, non-fiction, television, radio, film, theatre, and new media; to encourage WGAE members and staff to contribute their expertise to Foundation activities, thereby expanding the base and breadth of knowledge, as well as increasing the solidarity and power of the writing community in the larger world; and to work with other like-minded organizations in order to facilitate and expand the needs and goals of writers everywhere. Among the Foundation’s other programs are the Helen Deutsch Writing Workshops, the Brazil Global Initiative, the Actors and Writers Book Club, the Free Speech Leadership Initiative, and the Baltimore Sun Fellowships. For further information about the Foundation’s programs, go to www.wgaefoundation.org.
For more information on the Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship, contact Marsha Manns, 212-767-7805, mmanns@wgaeast.org.
Daily Record Business Writer, December 6, 2009
Anonymous donor funds project for laid off journalists
by Liz Farmer
Rashod Ollison, who was laid off as The Sun’s pop music critic in April.
More than seven months after The Baltimore Sun laid off more than one-quarter of its newsroom, some are perusing higher education, some have found journalism jobs or are freelancing, some have left the field and others are still unemployed.
It was one of the biggest layoffs in the paper’s history and shocking to some for the number of high-level managers let go — and it caught someone’s attention.
This summer, an anonymous donation was given to the National Writers Guild of America, East Foundation, with the instruction to use the money to help laid-off Sun employees.
Partnering with the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, a Baltimore Sun Fellowship was created and applications sent to those who had been laid off during the last few years (it is not available to those who took buyouts).
Twenty-eight people are participating in the fellowship, which pays a one-time stipend of more than $2,000. A Web site dedicated to chronicling their experiences at the paper is being created. According to the writers guild foundation, there is room for five or six more fellowships.
One of the fellows is building the site, which is expected to launch early next year, and another is copy editing the content. The remaining 26 are creating projects — photo essays, poems, short stories — that depict their memories of working at what many considered a Baltimore institution.
“It feels like a history project, even though The Sun is still there and operating,” said former City Hall reporter Doug Donovan, who left the paper in 2008 after more than five years. Donovan now freelances and is exploring documentary production.
While emotions ran high this spring during the layoffs, which were part of sweeping cuts by Chicago-based parent Tribune Co., the projects are more a collection of “bitter-sweet” memories, said the newspaper guild’s immediate past president, Bill Salganik, a former reporter who took a Sun buyout in 2008.
“It’s a good way for people who went through the layoff to sort of process their experience,” he said. “It’s not, ‘I hate Tribune.’”
Marsha Manns, executive director of the writers guild foundation, said the fellowship is the first of its kind for the organization, which offers writing workshops, runs television and film-based educational projects and offers a screenwriting fellowship.
Manns said she and others have talked about future uses of the project material beyond the Web site, but nothing has been decided yet. Any new project for another newspaper, for example, would need funding, she said.
“It is sort of an organic process, and we’re waiting to see where it evolves naturally,” said Manns.
Those who participated said the process was therapeutic.
Rashod Ollison, a pop music critic who was laid off in April, wrote “The Invisible Black Homo Blues” — a series of snapshots in time of how his job and the paper changed during his six-year tenure.
“I wanted to talk about how I felt, particularly in the last three years I was there, I was rendered invisible,” he said. “[In the beginning], the editors were very happy to have my voice there. They didn’t quite get it but they knew it was important.”
But after a “change of regimes” when then-editor William K. Marimow was fired in 2004, “the people in charge didn’t really get me,” he said.
Ollison has been freelancing but is venturing into academia and developing a history of rhythm and blues course for Temple University.
Julie Martin, a writer and producer for “Homicide: Life on the Street” and co-executive producer for “Law and Order,” said leaving a newspaper (or television show) can be highly emotional because people invest much of themselves in their work.
“When everyone’s job is to create a product together — a living, breathing, constantly changing product — there’s creativity to it and an emotional aspect to it … that naturally lends to a bonding,” she said.
Martin and Tom Fontana, foundation president and executive producer/writer for “Homicide,” and others (including David Simon, creator of “The Wire” and another Sun alum) hosted a workshop for the fellows last month in Baltimore. Those who attended shared their project ideas.
“Everyone wanted to honor the past and honor the memories but not get stuck,” Martin said. “There was a sense of trying to use this as a way to move forward.”
Texas Observer, November 26, 2009
Post-Traumatic
Three Texas Veterans on the Road to Recovery
The following narratives were written by Texas veterans living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition that affects a growing number of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. As part of their recovery process, they are writing about their lives and combat experiences as part of the Veterans Writing Project. Our special thanks to Ben Snyder, an Austin playwright who mentors the veterans, for his editing assistance.
Clayton Griffin
When I was born in Texarkana in October 1975, the country was still reeling from losing 50,000 of its best and brightest to the most unpopular war in American history. Who would have ever imagined that only 30 years later the same country would send this baby boy to Asia to fight another war? But they did and that is my story.
Growing up in and around Texarkana was just like any other place, I guess. Visiting family when we got the chance, making fun of your little brother because that's what your older brother did to you, worrying about everything but grades in high school and later wishing you had worried about grades more.
By the time I did graduate from high school, I decided to take some time off from school. After a string of minimum-wage jobs I knew I wanted more, but I didn't want to take out a huge loan for college, so I enlisted in the Air Force.
In 10 short years [beginning in 1997], I deployed five times, twice to Saudi Arabia. My last mission was to Iraq [with the 101st Airborne], where I served as a convoy commander, completed over 65 combat patrols and experienced many combat engagements. I saw it all firsthand: mortars, bombs, firefights ... everything.
Click to Read Full Article
Watertown Daily Times, November 17, 2009
Actress visits city school to spark interest in literature
Kathryn E. Erbe of 'Law and Order: Criminal Intent' and writer Thomas P. Kelly take questions from students Monday at the launch of the Actors and Writers Book Club at Watertown High School.
Actress Kathryn E. Erbe of "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" discussed literature with Watertown High School students Monday, kicking off the Actors and Writers Book Club.
The book club is a new organization that will send an actor and a writer to high schools to discuss works of literature with students, in an effort to get students excited about reading and writing. Ms. Erbe said she decided to get involved with the book club because she loves to read and she thought it would be a good opportunity to talk to youths.
"I've been a voracious reader since I was 13, so that's why I got involved with the book club," Ms. Erbe said. "And I know high school can be hard, so I wanted to talk to kids of that age, too."
Book club founder Thomas P. Kelly discussed literature with Watertown students. Mr. Kelly is a novelist who wrote the book "Payback," and is the literacy director for the Writers Guild of America, East.said.
Watertown High School was chosen for the launch of the program because of a collaboration between Mr. Kelly and Watertown English teacher Emily G. Sprague. Watertown is also the type of location the book club wants to target, because it's far from a major metropolitan area, Mr. Kelly said
"We're staying away from places like New York City, because there, you can throw a stone 10 feet and hit actors and writers," he said. "We want to go to places like Watertown, where it might be more exciting for someone to come to talk to students."
Ms. Erbe read an excerpt from the book "The Rules of the Game," written by Amy Tan. Then Mr. Kelly discussed the piece from a writer's perspective. The book centers on a young girl whose family moved from China to San Francisco's Chinatown.
Ms. Erbe used books as an escape when she was growing up, and as a way to better learn about herself and other people, she told students.
"I love this book because the way she talks about the emotions of these characters and their interactions with family members moved me," Ms. Erbe said.
English 12 students read part of the book during a short-story unit, Mrs. Sprague said. Mr. Kelly and Mrs. Sprague chose that book because the English students are familiar with it, and because Ms. Erbe loves the book.
Mr. Kelly and Ms. Erbe took some questions from students after their talk.
Students asked Mr. Kelly: "When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?" and "Can you explain your writing process?"
Mr. Kelly told students that he decided to become a writer when he was 16, and that he wakes up every morning to write when he's working on a novel because they take years to write.
Students asked Ms. Erbe about her acting career with questions such as: "What was it like to be in one of the 'Mighty Ducks' movies?"
Ms. Erbe told the students that making the movie was a lot of fun, and that she had to be careful in a lot of scenes so she didn't look taller than her co-star, Emilio Estevez.
After just a few questions, the bell rang and students filed out of the auditorium to their next class. Even though the speakers had less than an hour with the students, Mr. Kelly was happy with the first meeting of the book club.
"We want to spark the interest of students in reading, writing and storytelling," he said. "And to let them know that these things can be fun."
Fox 28 WNYF, November 16, 2009
'Payback" Author & "Law & Order" Actress Meet With WHS Students
Watertown High School seniors received a visit from a well-known actress a high-profile author, who were on hand to get students excited about reading, writing and story telling.
Katherine Erbe, who stars in the television drama "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", and Tom Kelly, who wrote "Payback", "The Rackets" and "Empire Rising", helped launch the Actors and Writers Book Club Monday.
"We felt it was a good team to send a writer and an actor out to talk about a work of literature, to talk about the process," said Kelly.
During two assemblies, Erbe read a story to students, Kelly discussed the writer's perspective and then held a question and answer session.
"I hope that they can go on to see the importance of story-telling and hearing stories in their families and telling their own stories," said Erbe, who is known for her role as Detective Alexandra Eames on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."
The Actors and Writers Book Club is a program which targets under-served areas in the country.
Watertown was selected fro the inaugural book club school district.
Read More on the Literacy Committee
The New York Times, October 13, 2009
Turning Swords to Pens, and Warriors to Writers
SAN ANTONIO — In a bare-walled room at the main library here, Kris Rodriguez, a military veteran, was struggling to explain his confusion as a new writer.
A first step, Jenny Lumet suggested, might be to choose a format. Writing a novel might be different than, say, a cookbook, said Ms. Lumet, a screenwriter whose credits include “Rachel Getting Married” and who was there to offer help
“A book is pretty thick,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who, at 30, has served in both the Marine Corps and the Army. “I don’t know if I can come up with that much material.” He had started writing down thoughts as therapy, after a brain injury caused by a roadside bomb in Iraq left him temporarily paralyzed. “In the hospital I had lost my vision and my speech,” he said.
So began a free weekend workshop, the fourth in an open-ended series to which those schooled in war, some of them wounded, came to learn craft from writers for screen, stage and the publishing world. This session, on Friday evening, was organized by the Writers Guild of America, East Foundation, which sponsored an earlier workshop in San Antonio and two in Columbus, Ohio. Attended by about two dozen veterans, the session received support from the Wounded Warrior Project and the National Endowment for the Arts Operation Homecoming.
Along with Ms. Lumet, out-of-towners like the playwright Michael Weller (“Loose Ends”), the television writer Anne Flett-Giordano (“Desperate Housewives”) and the former Black Hawk helicopter pilot Ryan Kelly (whose letters from Iraq were published in The New Yorker) were joined as mentors by a handful of local writers.
The meetings grew from an effort by guild writers to get in touch with what Tom Fontana, president of the foundation, likes to call “America’s stories.” The plan is to train those who wish to write — with no vetting for talent or professional ambition — in settings far from the entertainment corridors of New York and Los Angeles.
Speaking briefly before the latest workshop began on Friday, Mr. Fontana, a writer-producer on “The Philanthropist,” “Oz” and other series, said that Mr. Weller had urged the foundation to begin with military veterans. The next step might be to counsel auto workers in Detroit.
Of course the world has had its share of military writers. “Since Homer,” Ms. Lumet joked at one point. Still, the choice laid bare an inherent conflict.
“In the military, as I’ve learned, you’re selfless when you’re part of a unit,” Mr. Fontana said. “But writing is a selfish act.”
In small groups, with mentors sometimes outnumbering the mentored, the writers and warriors spent Friday night feeling their way toward common ground.
Among the bolder aspirants was Emily Embree, a Vietnam veteran who arrived pushing a walker but was not one to be pushed around by her coaches.
“I’m not going to tell you that, because you all are going to read it,” Ms. Embree said, when prodded by Mr. Weller to put her thoughts about a character into words. They were speaking about a fictional high school counselor named Flo, whom Ms. Embree has been developing since an earlier workshop.
Her real aim, Ms. Embree told the group, is to sharpen her writing skills for what she considers to be her life’s work: the compilation of a history that will describe her family’s place in America since the 1600s, and even earlier, where her American Indian ancestors are concerned.
“I want my family to have a living family history of who we are, where we come from, and why America plays such a big role in our lives,” said Ms. Embree, who noted that her forebears had served in the country’s armed forces since the Revolutionary War.
In the various groups on Friday there was surprisingly little talk about war stories, at least of the kind that have informed the movie “The Hurt Locker” or the television series “Over There.”
One group kicked around the ins and outs of a blog by a military woman — not present at the session — who has been grabbing attention with her public reports about a never-ending series of bad dates, often with civilians.
Another heard Teresa Dear, a former Russian linguist in the Air Force and a mother of four, lay out plans for a piece of Christian devotional literature, aimed at helping women who are going through marital problems.
In a separate room Ms. Dear’s husband James, another former Air Force linguist who served with the National Security Agency, was scratching on a pad and trying to figure out what exactly it was that he wanted to say. (Ms. Dear’s father, Vince Giammalvo, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Army for 23 years, was in yet another of the writers’ rooms.)
“I’ve got 150 things, all over the place,” Mr. Dear said. His current job as a landscape designer keeps him busy, he added.
“But there’s something in my heart,” he said, speaking after a session with Mr. Kelly and the television writer Chris Brancato. “I feel like it’s a calling to write.”
Read More on the Writing Workshop
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, September 24, 2008
WGAE picks fellowship schools Ten colleges and universities to participate in program
By Leslie Simmons
The WGA East Foundation has selected 10 colleges and universities to participate in its pilot Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting named after the late veteran New York entertainment attorney.
Nominees will be in the running for a $10,000 stipend to write an original screenplay under the guidance of a mentor selected by the foundation’s board. The award will be presented at the WGAE ceremony on Feb. 7 in New York City.
"Apprenticeship is a time-honored -- and still the best -- approach to learning and refining one's skills," said WGAE Foundation chair Marshall Brickman. "No amount of classroom or technical study can replace a stimulating one-on-one relationship between apprentice and mentor in which basics, such as structure, symmetry, architecture, character and dialogue can be discussed; of even greater value is the opportunity to watch an experienced practitioner identify problems and design solutions in vivo."
The participating schools include Boston University, Columbia College Chicago, Drexel University, Georgia State University, Howard University, New York University, Savannah College of Art & Design, Tulane University, Washington University in St. Louis and Wayne State University.
The fellowship is made possible by a grant from the Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation.
Variety, September 23, 2008
WGAE FOUNDATION sets screenwriter grant King Family Foundation donate $10,000
By N'NEKA HITE
The WGA East Foundation has established the Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting, to be awarded to a student from one of 10 collaborating institutions on Feb. 7 in New York.
The Charles and Lucille King Family Foundation donated the $10,000 grant for the 2008-09 pilot year.
Each institution will nominate one student who plans to pursue a career in screenwriting. The winner will use the grant to write an original script under the guidance of an established screenwriter mentor appointed by the foundation’s board.
Among the collaborating schools are Boston U., Columbia College Chicago, Howard U. and NYU.
TV WEEK, September 22, 2008
WGA East Foundation Creates Screenwriting Fellowship
By Vlada Gelman
Ten U.S. colleges and universities will compete in the Writers Guild of America East Foundation’s first Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting.
Each school will nominate one student who plans to pursue a career in screenwriting.
The winner of the fellowship will be announced at the WGAE awards ceremony scheduled for Feb. 7 in New York City.
The fellowship recipient will receive a $10,000 stipend to write an original screenplay with help from an established screenwriter selected by the Foundation’s board.
The participating schools are Boston University, Columbia College Chicago, Drexel University, Georgia State University, Howard University, New York University, Savannah College of Art & Design, Tulane University, Washington University in St. Louis and Wayne State University.
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