About me · My Writing · plays · playwriting

March madness!

It’s an exciting month for me, fellow scribes.  My short play The Voices is being performed as part of Ghost Dog Productions‘ new writing night at the Horse Bar, London, while previous play Love in the Time of Magicka is currently ‘on tour’ at the Little Black Box Theatre in Bristol and then next month at the King’s Arms in Salford, with a new director and cast for each location.  All three venues are fab ’boutique’ theatre spaces that love new writing.

horse bar
Theatre space at the Horse Bar – small but perfectly formed.

 

Meanwhile my article on decoding the mystery of blogging stats is in this month’s Writing Magazine (misleadingly labelled April issue, as magazines are from the future).

Exciting times!  Meanwhile I’m working on a full length play for a competition, plus some more short pieces.  But never fear, I shall still be watching out for opportunities to submit to children’s publishers and for writing tips to share with you.  My main tip this month: take every opportunity that comes your way.  You never know what might happen!

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Competitions · My Writing · playwriting

I’m a Pint-Sized Winner!

Actually it’s not me who’s pint-sized but my script!  My short play ‘Brought to Book’ is a winner in the 2013 Pint-Sized Plays competition.  Pint-Sized Plays bring theatre into pubs by staging performances of the ten finalists’ scripts in various pubs around Tenby in Wales as part of Tenby Arts Festival.  They then go on to take part in a ‘script slam’ with the winner taking home the coveted pint trophy.  There were 250 entries from all around the world so I feel a great sense of achievement in being a finalist.  I just wish Tenby wasn’t four and half hours away so I could go and watch!

The win marks a bit of a change of direction for me.  I’m still writing (and submitting!) children’s fiction but my involvement in amateur dramatics has sparked a flurry of playwriting activity.  I’ve discovered that it’s ideal if you like writing dialogue and hate description, like me!  Searching for opportunities to submit is very different from finding a publisher.  When you write a script you are writing for performance rather than publication, and there are plenty of young theatre companies looking for new scripts, either at certain times of the year or through competitions.  Entry fees are rare but so is payment.  The reward is getting your play performed rather than monetary recompense.  The most useful site I have found for opportunities is Playwright’s Competition Calendar.  You can browse by month according to when the competition expires.  Well worth a look if you’re interested in script writing.