Month: June 2018

Jon Paul Burkhart Talks About ‘Sick For Toys’ – His Upcoming Psychological Thriller

by Kathryn Graham

Jon Paul Burkhart is a multi-talented writer, actor, producer, and director. He has a ton of credits to his name in all of these arenas, and he’s played roles on many popular shows like This is Us, Castle, American Horror Story, and Parks & Recreation. 

You can look for him on the upcoming season of GLOW coming June 29th, 2018. The important thing for now, though, is that Jon Paul and I had a chat about his latest role as one of the villainous leads in Sick For Toys, a psychological thriller that he co-produced with his partner David Gunning, he said a lot of things well worth listening to. read article

Tony Gilroy, writer of ‘The Bourne Identity,’ Schools Us About Using Our Imaginations

Wikipedia on Tony Gilroy:

Anthony Joseph Gilroy is an American screenwriter and filmmaker. He wrote the screenplays for the first four films of the Bourne series starring Matt Damon, among other successful films, and directed the fourth film of the franchise.

Don’t you just love people who not only know what they’re talking about, they fucking love it? read article

What TV Can Teach You About Lazy Writing

The negativity inherent in the title of this article definitely captured our attention. After we read it, we felt that it would attract that of our visitors as well.

Bottom line: Yes, the writer of this article dishes on TV writing pretty well. But what she says is true. And what she recommends for writers is, well, absolutely on the proverbial money. (Yeah, using that old phrase was a fine example of “lazy writing.” But, well, you know….)

by Noelle Sterne

As a writers, you are sensitive to words. After all, they’re your currency. Even when you’re taking a break to watch TV, you may unconsciously be evaluating—with disdain or grudging admiration—the words you encounter. Developing sensitivity for lazy language can help you assuage any lingering guilt for taking breaks, especially with TV shows. read article

Peggy Bechko’s 6 Reasons to Give Up Writing (?)

Pic found at soberrecovery.com for ironic reasons of our own

by Peggy Bechko

Here we are again, gang, and today I’m going to discuss the possibility with you that you just might want to stop writing, give it up, walk away, move on to other things. However you want to phrase it, maybe writing isn’t for you.

It’s too late for me, I’ve been published frequently, big houses, smaller houses, Indy publishing and scripts optioned. But, you might want to save yourself. It’s hard to make if you’ve invested a lot of yourself and your time into something that meant a lot to you but just didn’t pan out. read article

Top TV Drama Showrunners Ruminate on Life, Death, and Their Workloads

How do you spot a successful TV drama showrunner? Look for somebody “on the verge of bad health and insanity.” We’re guessing that isn’t what the folks who bring us “Writers on the Verge” mean. Or is it?

by Lacey Rose

A gathering of top showrunners can quickly devolve into a type of therapy session about dealing with audience pressures and network demands. But when this sextet — The Looming Tower’s Dan Futterman, 50; Power’s Courtney Kemp, 41; The Crown’s Peter Morgan, 55; The Handmaid‘s Tale’s Bruce Miller, 53; The Good Doctor’s David Shore, 58; and The Chi’sLena Waithe, 33 — gathered on a late-April morning for The Hollywood Reporter‘s annual Drama Showrunner Roundtable, it managed to avoid the usual subjects of writerly angst, save some musings from Morgan, who lamented a U.K. system that doesn’t nurture writers rooms as well as U.S. shows do. read article