Friday 11 December 2009

I'm a winner!

I've just been told that I'm THE winner of the A&C Black book pitch competition. I win a day at their Insider Guide To How to Get Published conference in March in London. My pitch was chosen from over 100 entries which is particularly satisfying!

This is super news as it will hopefully help me find an agent or publisher for my novel and/or the children stories I expect to have written by then.

That's all for now :-)

B x

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Latest News

Well I sent off my 3 applications for the i-features micro-budget feature scheme run by South West Screen. They had well over 500 applications according to their blog and will eventually short list that down to 3 - so odds of about 150/1!

The good thing is that we'll all know by 23rd of December whether we've made the cut.

I'm pleased enough with my applications however not least because I have two experienced producers attached.  The i-features folks aren't just looking for good film ideas but for teams with a good mix of experience so this will hopefully give my applications an added edge.

It was nice to see that a number of my Facebook screenwriter friends went for it too. It would be nice if some of them actually got short listed as it would hopefully give us all a chance to finally meet in the REAL world!

In other news I met with a group of people who are interested in helping me put on a Birmingham Irish Film Festival next year and we have tentatively decided to try to go for an early September festival so its is nicely positioned between the Galway Film Fleadh and Cork Film Festivals on the Irish Films festivals calender.

With Christmas and the party season in the way we decided to meet again in the New Year to fine out the details and really get things under way. I am however making ongoing enquiries with various film companies and distributors to try and get hold of some of the cream of Irish features, animations and documentaries made in recent times.

The other really good news is that The Harp which is an Irish community newspaper distributed throughout the Midlands has kindly offered to help spread the word and help make the festival happen.

In the meantime I'm going to try to keep to my promise of writing a childrens book before Christmas so that it can be illustrated by artist Claire Kiernan after Christmas as well as moving other screenplay projects on a bit more.

TAFN B x