This accessible and informative textbook provides a guide to the craft of screenwriting with an emphasis on diverse perspectives, underrepresented groups and their screen stories. Readers will learn to master writing a feature-length screenplay in a framework that focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion. With case studies to aid understanding, the book explores the screenwriting process in stages, explaining how to create a logline, as well as character bios, writing and choosing a genre, differentiating between writing a treatment, a synopsis, composing an outline, incorporating the formatting process and finally creating a scene and sequence. The techniques specific to screenwriting will also be covered in the text such as writing dialogue and action, establishing setting and time period and most importantly mastering the craft of visual storytelling. At the same time, the textbook introduces concepts of content choices that are diverse and inclusive, such as stereotypes vs. archetypes, intersectional characters, underrepresented groups and themes such as social justice, systemic racism, class conflict, gender inequity and climate change. Due to its subject matter and inclusive approach, this textbook will be an essential guide for all aspiring and current screenwriters who want to successfully navigate and complement today’s developing industry.

Breaking down the traditional structures of screenplays in an innovative and progressive way, while also investigating the ways in which screenplays have been traditionally told, this book interrogates how screenplays can be written to reflect the diverse life experiences of real people. Author Jess King explores how existing paradigms of screenplays often exclude the very people watching films and TV today. Taking aspects such as characterization, screenplay structure, and world-building, King offers ways to ensure your screenplays are inclusive and allow for every person’s story to be heard. In addition to examples ranging from Sorry to Bother You to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, four case studies on Killing Eve, Sense8, I May Destroy You, and Vida ground the theoretical work in practical application. The book highlights the ways in which screenplays can authentically represent and uplift the lived experiences of those so often left out of the narrative, such as the LGBTQIA+ community, women, and people of color. The book addresses a current demand for more inclusive and progressive representation in film and TV and equips screenwriters with the tools to ensure their screenplays tell authentic stories, offering innovative ways to reimagine current screenwriting practice towards radical equity and inclusion. This is a timely and necessary book that brings the critical lenses of gender studies, queer theory, and critical race studies to bear on the practice of screenwriting, ideal for students of screenwriting, aspiring screenwriters, and industry professionals alike.

This accessible and informative textbook provides a guide to the craft of screenwriting with an emphasis on diverse perspectives, underrepresented groups, and their screen stories. Readers will learn to master writing a feature-length screenplay in a framework that focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion. With case studies to aid understanding, the book explores the screenwriting process in stages, explaining how to create a logline, as well as character bios, writing and choosing a genre, differentiating between writing a treatment, a synopsis, composing an outline, incorporating the formatting process, and finally creating a scene and sequence. The techniques specific to screenwriting will also be covered in the text such as writing dialogue and action, establishing setting and time-period and most importantly mastering the craft of visual storytelling. At the same time, the textbook introduces concepts of content choices that are diverse and inclusive, such as stereotypes v. archetypes, intersectional characters, underrepresented groups and themes such as social justice, systemic racism, class conflict, gender inequity, and climate change. Due to its subject matter and inclusive approach this textbook will be an essential guide for all aspiring and current screenwriters who want to successfully navigate and complement today's developing industry"- Provided by publisher.

Many writers avoid creating characters of different ethnic backgrounds than their own out of fear that they might get it wrong. To address this fear, Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward collaborated to develop a workshop that addresses these problems with the aim of both increasing writers skill and sensitivity in portraying difference in their fiction as well as allaying their anxieties about getting it wrong. Writing the Other: A Practical Approach is the manual that grew out of their workshop. It discusses basic aspects of characterization and offers elementary techniques, practical exercises, and examples for helping writers create richer and more accurate characters with differences.

Long recognized as a master teacher at writing programs like VONA, the Loft, and the Stonecoast MFA, with A Stranger's Journey, David Mura has written a book on creative writing that addresses our increasingly diverse American literature. Mura argues for a more inclusive and expansive definition of craft, particularly in relationship to race, even as he elucidates timeless rules of narrative construction in fiction and memoir. His essays offer technique-focused readings of writers such as James Baldwin, ZZ Packer, Maxine Hong Kingston, Mary Karr, and Garrett Hongo, while making compelling connections to Mura's own life and work as a Japanese American writer. In A Stranger's Journey, Mura poses two central questions. The first involves identity: How is writing an exploration of who one is and one's place in the world? Mura examines how the myriad identities in our changing contemporary canon have led to new challenges regarding both craft and pedagogy. Here, like Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark or Jeff Chang's Who We Be, A Stranger's Journey breaks new ground in our understanding of the relationship between the issues of race, literature, and culture. The book's second central question involves structure: How does one tell a story? Mura provides clear, insightful narrative tools that any writer may use, taking in techniques from fiction, screenplays, playwriting, and myth. Through this process, Mura candidly explores the newly evolved aesthetic principles of memoir and how questions of identity occupy a central place in contemporary memoir.

If there is one skill that separates the professional screenwriter from the amateur, it is the ability to rewrite successfully. From Jack Epps, Jr., the screenwriter of Top Gun, Dick Tracy, and The Secret of My Success, comes a comprehensive guide that explores the many layers of rewriting. In Screenwriting is Rewriting, Epps provides a practical and tested approach to organizing notes, creating a game plan, and executing a series of focused passes that address the story, character, theme, structure, and plot issues. Included are sample notes, game plans, and beat sheets from Epps' work on films such as Sister Act and Turner and Hooch. Also featured are exclusive interviews with Academy Award® winning screenwriters Robert Towne (Chinatown) and Frank Pierson (Dog Day Afternoon), along with Academy Award® nominee Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich).

In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humour and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart – to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O’ Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Brontë ’ s structural nuance and Charles Dickens’ s deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.

Learn the basics of paper-piecing with renowned teacher Carol Doak. Create your own wall quilt by sewing blocks that can be completed in 3 simple steps!

New York Times–Bestselling Author: A Manhattan chef with a tragic past tries to build a new family in this decade-spanning, “exquisite page-turner” (People). In 1965 New York, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin. With his movie-star good looks, Peter, a survivor of Auschwitz, is the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter doesn’t care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. He’s resigned himself to a solitary life. Running Masha’s consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the Nazi death camp while his wife—the restaurant’s namesake—and two young daughters perished. Then June Bouquet, an up-and-coming model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard. Though she’s far younger than he is, the two begin a passionate, whirlwind courtship. When June unexpectedly becomes pregnant, Peter proposes, believing that beginning a new family with the woman he loves will allow him to let go of the horror of the past. But over the next twenty years, the indelible sadness of those memories will overshadow Peter, June, and their daughter Elsbeth, transforming them in shocking, heartbreaking, and unexpected ways. Spanning three decades, The Lost Family is an insightful, funny, and elegantly bittersweet study of the repercussions of loss and love. “An extraordinary read, the kind of book that makes you sob and smile, the kind that gives you hope. . . . It is compassionate, masterful and disturbingly contemporary.” —Tatiana de Rosnay, bestselling author of Sarah’s Key “Gripping . . . deeply moving.” —Booklist (starred review) “An evocative look at the legacy of war and how it impacts one memorable family.” —Jami Attenberg, bestselling author of The Middlesteins “Will offer plenty of discussion for book groups.” —Library Journal (starred review)

"52 great authors, their best short fiction, and their insights on writing"--Cover.