Women Screenwriters Today Their Lives and Words

Subjects:

• Popular Culture » Popular Culture (General)
• Women's Studies » Women in Literature & the Arts
• Women's Studies » Women's Studies (General)
• Popular Culture » Film Studies

Reviews:

• This breezy, accessible book contains a good deal of fascinating information on the lives of women who work not only as screenwriters but also as producers and directors. McCreadie interviewed a wide variety of women in the fields of cinema and television, from beginners to seasoned professionals, and got the inside story on what working in the rough-and-tumble world of Hollywood is really like. Some of the women she talked to are independent filmmakers; others are longtime denizens of the studio system. McCreadie tells the story in a straightforward way; she allows all of her subjects space in which to talk about their work....[t]his slight but affectionate book gives a voice to those who work in an industry that is still remarkably sexist and unforgiving, telling their story directly, truthfully, and with a minimum of editorializing. Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates, researchers and faculty, general readers.
  —Choice May 2006
• Women Screenwriters Today demonstrates the variety of experiences for women within the business: from Oscar winning writers to jobbing hacks to highly renumerated script doctors. It may fail to address the larger questions, but McCreadie's accessible survey is littered with insightful interviews, stories and anecdotes which allow the small number of women screenwriters to record their experiences of the industry. Women Screenwriters Today illuminates this often overlooked area of the film industry. In drawing attention to the spectrum of work being done by contemporary women screenwriters, McCreadie not only rectifies this, but also demonstrates how little the business has changed since Frances Marion carried her scripts around the MGM lot in an unmarked folder.
  —Scope June 2007
• [T]he book offers an engaging combination of industry anecdotes, behind-the-scenes stories about the making of specific films, and useful tips for budding writers. Women Screenwriters Today is aimed at women pursuing careers in screenwriting specifically and filmmaking and television production generally, but it is also a potentially useful scholarly resource for quotations and production history details....[I] would without doubt recommend Women Screenwriters Today to any aspiring screenwriter male or female, and I will suggest it as outside reading when next I teach a course on women and film. It touches upon several issues that are highly relevant to the study of women in the arts, and it does a good job of highlighting (without delving deeply into) the problems facing women in the film and television industries today.
  —Film Criticism Fall/Winter 2006
• Through interviews and close scrutiny of screenplays for both film and television, McCreadie pursues the question of whether women write from a unique perspective. She discusses such films as Little Women, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Under the Tuscan Sun and talks to actors and directors including Sofia Coppola and Emma Thompson. McCreadie also discusses how women have managed to survive and prosper in the unforgiving world of cinema.
  —Reference & Research Book News May 2006

• Endorsement From Darnell M. Hunt, PhD
  Professor of Sociology
  University of California, Los Angeles: As anyone who has looked closely at the Hollywood entertainment industry knows, men dominate today's screenwriting positions in both television and film. Marsha McCreadie's Women Screenwriters: Their Lives and Words takes us inside this exclusive world, introducing us to women writers who have made it against the odds, who have perfected their craft, and who have been able to tell women's stories. Along the way, we learn about how these women have negotiated the tricky task of working with men, about their personal inspirations for the stories they tell, and about the work habits that seem to facilitate their successes. A must read for any woman seriously hoping to make it in this industry and for anyone else hoping to understand the unique challenges they face
• Endorsement From Debra Zimmerman
  Executive Director
  Women Make Movies: Fascinating and invaluable. A must-read for anyone interested in the subject of women filmmakers!

Table of Contents:

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• The Film of Sensibility: Giving Melodrama a Good Name
• Vets and Lifers: How They Got and Stayed in
• The New Professionals
• Breakaway Queens and Genre Benders
• Adaptation
• The Independents: Finding a Perch, Having Your Say
• The Pragmatists
• The Smaller Screen: TV--A Better Fit for Women?
• The View from Abroad
• Conclusion and Brief Bibliography