writer. screenwriter. learning person. loves being human.
We are all about the movies today in our house. Nicola gives you a look at the new Robin Hood, and I have this snort-your-tea trailer (big hat tip to Colleen!) for a film I am sure will be an instant classic. Man, I should have written this movie…
Enjoy your day.
(Sorry about the ads — I don’t seem to be able to do anything about them, but you can turn off the ad window).
Nicola and I Tivoed the E! preshow awards because we like to look at all the pretty dresses, and then of course the Oscars. We drank beer and wine and ate dinner while we watched (skipping all the commercials, which is the beauty of TiVo). I got snockered, because I do every year for the Oscars — they are, even more than writing awards, my Great Big Dream of Recognition, and I like to drink and wave my arms and opine about the speeches, and most of all to imagine myself there. My BA is in Acting, and I’ve been on stage, or writing, or both, since I was 8 years old: the Oscars have always been one long evening of what if and what I would say and how marvelous it would be.
So, a few thoughts on tonight:
Isn’t Kathryn Bigelow awesome?
Helen Mirren is so gorgeous and I want to be her when I grow up.
I love that for the Best Actress and Best Actor nominations, they bring out people who have actually worked with the nominees who can say something personal about them and their work. It’s a big award; it’s nice to have a chance to see the nomination be truly meaningful.
I read the screenplay of Precious recently, and thought it was astonishingly moving. Screenplays are not novels: it’s not so easy to make them interesting reads. This one is really good.
James Taylor can still sing. It is nice to see age and experience onstage. Youth and energy and potential has its place, but the older I get, the more I enjoy seeing potential realized.
Someday writing awards will be sexy. Today is not that day.
Can I just double down on the Kathryn Bigelow thing?
In 1989, after Clarion, when Nicola was back in England and I was in Georgia, I wrote her a long letter that was essentially a play-by-play of the Academy Awards. That year they made a bunch of unfortunate women dress up like dancing stars with tap shoes. The star costumes covered their heads and bodies, so out on stage they were just great big gold stars with legs and arms, tapping away. It was a particularly funny production number, and with any luck at all we will not see its like again. I sat on my sofa with a glass of wine and drew Nicola a little picture of the dancing stars. I don’t remember who won that year, but I remember wishing that she was there. So tonight was a good night, you know?
Have a good week. The world is full of magic: I hope some of it comes your way.
Well, you just have to see this.
The Rube Goldberg machine was built by the band and Synn Labs, and just goes to show what happens when you tell people to go have some fun.
Enjoy.
I haven’t been out of my editing/writing cave in a while, and I’m missing the movies. I like matinees with quiet grownup audiences and fresh popcorn. I like that immersion in story…
But right now it’s all about the Netflix, and that’s good too. There’s lots on our list right now that I’m looking forward to, including Shutter Island. I’m always curious to see how writers handle adaptations of fiction like this, that has an essential secret at its heart. It’s easier to keep these kinds of secrets in prose, it seems to me, easier to bring the audience into the mystery without making them feel jerked around.
And so I was interested to read this interview with Shutter Island screenwriter Læta Kalogridis. I thought I’d be reading about adaptation: instead, I found a very thoughtful discussion of women in Hollywood, urgency and violence in narrative, and a lot more.
And she’s from Winter Haven! (*Tampa native waves at Læta Kalogridis through the internet*)
Enjoy.
Hi!
I respectfully disagree with the posts here about the raccoons. They can be nice and sweet and they are obviously cute. The lady in Florida who was attacked by a family of raccoons “attacked” first… She went outside with a broom and started to hit them, I think any animal, specially one with babies with them would have done the same, just to protect themselves.
I have been feeding a small female in my backyard. She is the sweetest thing, 4 nights ago she brought 3 babies for me to meet, the cutest thing. She lets me get near her, she has never showed any aggression.
Respectful disagreement is never a problem here. Thanks for taking the time to write.
There is a reason the Park Service says Don’t feed the bears. But I sincerely hope it all works out for you, and am glad you are enjoying it.
Today there’s a new website in town: Lambda Literary. It’s a virtual home for anyone who reads, writes, publishes, reviews and supports stories by and about queer people.
When I met Nicola in 1988 and then went back home alone to Atlanta for a year, the queer people I knew were friends I’d met by happenstance at first, and then through dances and parties and, most especially, Charis Books and More. I missed Nicola, and I had new things about myself to figure out, and I was hungry for stories and connection with people who wrote them.
Fortunately for Atlanta, Charis is still there. But many LGBT bookstores have not survived, and that means that queer people in many parts of the US — and around the world — have to go looking for stories elsewhere. Because of the hard work of an amazing team of people, Lambda Literary is a new place for all of us. Because it’s not just about finding book reviews, interviews with writers, news of queer literature — although you will — it’s also about finding community.
It’s important. And it rocks.
I’m enormously proud of my beloved Nicola, who championed this vision to the LLF board; our dear friend Karina Meléndez, who developed this extensive, beautiful site; and of people I’ve never met — Tony Valenzuela, the Executive Director of Lambda Literary Foundation, and Antonio Gonzalez, the Web Producer and Chief Editor, who together will keep the site growing for all of us.
So hey, that’s enough from me. Go take a look! And tell everyone!