Our bi-annual gathering of scriptwriters...

It's that time again.  Every January and June, there is this special gathering of playwrights and screenwriters in the quaint mountain village of Peterborough, NH for a ten-day marathon of sharing new work and participating in intensive workshops on our craft and our industry.  Our next get together launches this Friday, January 6.

Of course what I'm talking about is our low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Talented student writers from all over the country--from New Mexico to Florida, from Texas to Michigan and from New York City to Dallas--as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico and Wabasca, Canada will all gather together to celebrate our art form with a distinquished professional faculty drawn from various aspects of our profession.

There will be intensive pitch sessions of new story ideas, craft classes in dialogue and rewriting and career oriented workshops on submission tactics and the national new play development arena. And central to the residency will be ten readings of new work written by our students this past semester, all of which are cast with professional actors and are followed by extensive feedback sessions.

To top off this residency, we've invited our alumni back for the opening weekend to share their adventures in the scriptwriting trade and to help further expand our growing networking apparatus on a national level.

Overall, these residencies are a time and place for emerging writers to share their passion for their art and expand their skill and their horizons as artists.  And all student writers leave the experience renewed and ready to go to work during the semester on their next project with their assigned professional mentor--developing a new script they'll share with the whole group at the next residency.

It's quite special.  Come join us if you can.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran July 21-31, 2016 and we are about to start our next residency that runs January 6-15.  We are currently accepting applications for starting the program with our June residency running from June 22-July 2.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.