Best playwright: new category for creative writing awards 2013

The Potting Shed, Finborough Theatre (London), January 2011

 

Best playwright for theatre is a new category for entries to the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s Creative Writing Awards 2013.

This category recognises Greene’s contribution to twentieth-century theatre, and offers further scope to enthusiastic writers to express their talents.

 

In their entries to the competition screenplay writers and playwrights must embed the following words somewhere in their dialogue:

“The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window....”

Prose writers must begin with the following words, and continue from there:

“The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window....”

The new full list of eight categories is:

(1) best prose fiction writer;

(2) best prose thriller writer;

(3) best prose travel writer;

(4) best screenplay writer;

(5) best playwright (for theatre);

(6) best writer of prose, screenplay or play under the age of twenty-one years on 1st April 2013;

(7) best Berkhamstedianwriter of prose, screenplay or play (i.e. a writer who is a pupil at Berkhamsted School on 1st April 2013);

(8) best Old Berkhamstedian writer of prose, screenplay or play (i.e. a writer who is a former pupil atBerkhamsted School on 1st April 2013).

Each entry shall be written mostly in the English language and shall have a title; each prose entry shall be no more than 800 words; each screenplay and play (for theatre) entry shall be typed on no more than four sides of A4 paper in a normal font size (e.g. Times New Roman 11pt).

Full details of the rules and practices for the awards may be seen on the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s website.

At recent meetings of the Graham Greene International Festival in Berkhamsted (England, UK) Greene’s work as a playwright was the subject of events led by:

(i) Michael Billington (theatre critic, The Guardian) in a talk titled “Graham Greene in the Theatre” given on Saturday 3rd October 2009, which developed into his chapter “The Plays of Graham Greene” in Dangerous Edges of Graham Greene (editors, Dermot Gilvary and Darren J.N. Middleton; Continuum: London and New York, 2011);

(ii) Dr Joe Spence (historian and Master of Dulwich College) in a talk titled “In and Beyond The Living Room: The Art and Scope of Graham Greene, Dramatist” and in rehearsed readings mainly from The Potting Shed and The Complaisant Lover performed by a company of professional actors on Friday 1st October 2010; the acting company was Sally Knyvette, Philip Battley, Jessica Boyd, Eve Matheson, Isabel Pollen, Michael Palmer, Oliver Norton-Smith and Joe Spence;

(iii) Svetlana Dimčović (theatre director) in a talk titled “Backstage with Greene” given on Saturday 2nd October 2010, when she discussed her production of Greene’s play The Potting Shed at the Finborough Theatre (Earl’s Court, London) in 2010. The show was given an extended run in January 2011, and reviewed in The Guardian by Michael Billington. Cast: Charlie Roe, Zoe Thorne, Cate Debenham-Taylor, Eileen Battye, Malcolm James, Paul Cawley, David Gooderson, Carl Ferguson, Janet Hargreaves, Lorna Jones and Martin Wimbush. Design: Kate Guinness. Lighting: Jessica Glaisher. Sound: Simon Perkin. Direction: Svetlana Dimčović. The production photograph (above) was taken by Tristram Kenton, and shows a scene between Sara (Cate Debenham-Taylor) and James Callifer (Paul Cawley).

Winners of Creative Writing Awards 2012 & Starting points for Competitions 2013



Prof Peter Evans (left) congratulates Fergal Casey.

Christina Hyun, outside Deans' Hall, Berkhamsted School

Prof Peter Evans (left) presents an Award to Jonathan Langley.

Starting points for Awards in 2013

The starting points for the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s Creative Writing Awards 2013 were announced at the Graham Greene InternationalFestival 2012.

 

Prose writers must begin with the following words, and continue from there:

 

The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window....

 

Screenplay writers must embed these words somewhere in their dialogue:

 

The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window....

 

The Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s Creative Writing Awards 2013 are offered in the following categories:

 

(i) best prose fiction writer;

 

(ii) best prose thriller writer;

 

(iii) best prose travel writer;

 

(iv) best screenplay writer;

 

(v) best (prose or screenplay) writer under the age of twenty-one years on 1st April 2013;

 

(vi) best (prose or screenplay) Berkhamstedian writer (i.e. a writer who is a pupil at Berkhamsted School on 1st April 2013);

 

(vii) best (prose or screenplay) Old Berkhamstedian writer (i.e. a writer who is a former pupil at Berkhamsted School on 1st April 2013).

 

The closing dates for entries will be 1st April 2013. Each entry shall be written mostly in the English language and shall have a title. Each entry will be a complete work in itself. Each prose text shall be no more than 800 words; each screenplay text shall be written on no more than four sides of A4 paper in a normal font size (e.g. Times New Roman 11pt).

 

Full details and rules may be seen at:

 

http://www.grahamgreenefestival.org/Pages/awards.php

Winners of Awards in 2012

At the Festival 2012, prizes were presented by Prof Peter Evans (Queen Mary, University of London, UK) and Prof Neil Sinyard (University of Hull, UK) to the following winners of the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s Creative Writing Awards 2012:

Fergal Casey (above, top image) (Ballinteer, County Dublin, Ireland) for Best Fiction and Best Screenplay

Christina Hyun (above, middle image) (Issaquah, Washington, USA) for Best Thriller

Jonathan Langley (above, lower image) (South Africa and Oxfordshire, UK) for Best Travel writing

Aimée Boggins (Hertfordshire, England, UK) for Best Berkhamstedian writer.

Sir Derek Jacobi is filming; Prof O'Connor steps into breach at Festival 2012

Unfortunately, Sir Derek Jacobi has been forced to withdraw from the list of guest speakers at the Graham Greene International Festival 2012 in Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire, England, UK) because of his filming commitments.

Prof Thomas P. O’Connor (above; at the gravestone of Graham Greene in the lower photograph) (School of Media, Arts and Design at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA) will take his place at 3.45pm on Saturday 29th September 2012, when he will introduce a screening of his documentary film titled Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene (USA, 2013) in Deans' Hall, Berkhamsted School. The film is narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi, and the voice of Graham Greene is spoken by the actor Bill Nighy.

“Considering Greene's worldwide literary stature and colourful life,” Prof O'Connor said, “it's remarkable that there hasn't been an American-produced, in-depth documentary on him until now.”

The film was photographed on high-definition video, and it is scheduled for a national prime-time broadcast in the USA in Spring 2013.

This film includes contributions from novelist John Le Carré, psychologist Kay Jamison, critic David Lodge, Time magazine's correspondent Bernard Diederich, former CIA Inspector General Fredrick Hitz, and Greene's daughter Caroline Bourget.

Prof O'Connor's production was enhanced by a distinguished production team, including executive producer Barbara De Fina (GoodFellas, The Age of Innocence), cinematographer Allen Moore (The Civil War, Baseball), and London based sound engineer Trevor Hotz (Operatunity).

Since 1979 Prof O'Connor has written and produced over fifty documentaries and plays for television, several of which have won major awards. He has travelled widely for his productions — throughout Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Mexico. His film Fatima (USA, 1984) was the first documentary shown nationwide in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. During a NASA fellowship in 1998, he wrote and produced a documentary on the first manned lunar landing. A production company in Los Angeles has taken an option on his screenplay titled Fools of Time.

The Graham Greene Birthplace Trust apologises for the alteration to the programme originally published, and hopes that members of the public will be delighted with the film and talk by Prof O’Connor.

William Ivory's 'Bert and Dickie' screened on BBC1

William Ivory, who along with Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone will co-lead the Creative Writing Workshop at the Festival 2012, is the author of the BBC’s television drama Bert and Dickie which will be screened on BBC1 at 8.30pm on Wednesday 25th July 2012.

The story is located at the time of the preparations for the Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Austerity Games, in London 1948.

Thrown together just five weeks before the final of the 1948 London Olympics, Bert Bushnell and Dickie Burnell defied all the odds and achieved gold in the double sculls. This is the story of how they did it - not only by pushing physical and emotional limits, but also by confronting and overcoming their vast professional and personal differences.

A boat builder's son from Wargrave, Bert Bushnell might be under six foot and slight, but he knows that he's got what it takes to represent his country in the single sculls. When he does win a place on the British team, however, he's shocked to discover that it's not in the event for which he has trained. Instead the selecting coach, Jack Beresford, has decided that Bert will partner Dickie Burnell in the double sculls.

An Eton and Oxford educated "Blue" from a family of rowing royalty, six-foot four Dickie couldn't be more different to Bert. Unable to hide a chip on his shoulder about the upper classes, Bert is openly hostile to Dickie and their first outing on the river is a disaster - as each tries to out-scull the other. As they struggle exhausted from the water, Beresford is forced to face up to the fact that his gamble - just five weeks before the Olympic final - may have been a foolish one.

Bert’s and Dickie's personal battle reflects a much greater struggle, as London prepares to host the Olympic Games. In 1948, just three years after the end of the second world war, London is half-destroyed and its people are starving. Thus the ‘Austerity Games’ were born, and the film portrays just what was achieved with a post-war mentality characterised by the slogan ‘Make do and mend’.

Bert and Dickie also begin to realise that they share more in common than they ever would have expected. Both have the same determination and drive and, on a personal level, both have been shaped by complex relationships with their fathers. As they realise that their big opportunity has come, they finally start to work together.

Set against the backdrop of a country on its knees, Bert and Dickie is an uplifting, warm-hearted and celebratory story about how two men rose above differences of birth and class to become Olympic gold medallists - and how London did achieve a brilliant and triumphant Games.

William Ivory (screenwriter for BBC TV and film and playwright) and Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone (novelist and short story writer) will lead a newly devised and practical one-day course on the relationship of character and plot in Prose Fiction and Screenplay at the Graham Greene International Festival in Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire, UK) on Saturday 29th September 2012.

This event includes the announcement of the titles for the GGBT Creative Writing Awards for 2013, breaks for tea or coffee and attendance at the Interview with Sir Derek Jacobi at 16:15.

Advance booking is essential to guarantee a place on the Creative Writing Workshop.

BBC TV's William Ivory stars at Festival 2012

William Ivory (above) is a leading attraction at the Graham Greene International Festival 2012 in Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire, England, UK).

An outline of the programme is given below. More details may be seen on the printed Handbook and the Festival's website.

Graham Greene International Festival 2012:
The Programme

Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire, England, UK)

Wednesday 26th September – Sunday 30th September 2012

Festival Director: Prof. Neil Sinyard (University of Hull, UK)

The Festival is sponsored by Greene King plc.

Wednesday 26th September

19:15 – 22:00

Pre-Festival Event, Literary Quiz, Town Hall, Berkhamsted

Entry costs £8 per person, and can be secured by contacting Pippa Brush by telephone on 0044-1442 869555 or by e-mail at pippa.brush@stfrancis.org.uk

All proceeds from the quiz will be donated to the Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted.

Thursday 27th September

16:30 – 18:00

An event for Berkhamsted School’s Senior Students. Old Hall, Berkhamsted School

Neil Sinyard speaks to senior English students at Berkhamsted School.

This event includes the announcement of the titles for the GGBT Creative Writing Awards for 2013.

17:30 – 19:15

Social Gathering and Buffet Supper. The Gatsby, High Street

Tickets: £15

19:30 – 21:45

Film Night at The Rex Cinema, Berkhamsted

Film: The Human Factor (1979)

(115 mins; UK; Director, Otto Preminger; starring Richard Attenborough, Nicol Williamson, John Gielgud and Derek Jacobi)

Classification: 15

Introduced by Richard Combs (film critic, lecturer and broadcaster)

Tickets: £8

Friday 28th September

Morning Session

Town Hall, Berkhamsted

9:45 – 11:00

‘Researching Greene’

PhD scholars discuss their work on Graham Greene. Contributors include Creina Mansfield, Martyn Sampson and Sarah Prescott.

11:00, Break for Tea and Coffee

11:30 – 12:45

Professor Kevin Ruane (Professor of Modern History at Canterbury Christ Church University)

‘The Hidden History of Graham Greene’s Vietnam war’

Tickets: £12

12:45, Break for Lunch

Afternoon Session

Town Hall, Berkhamsted

14:15 - 15:30

Prof. François Gallix (Paris-Sorbonne University)

‘Greene, Spies and MI6’

15:30, Break for Tea and Coffee

16:00 - 17:30

Prof. Adam Piette (University of Sheffield)

‘The Third Man, Underground Intelligence and the Freudian Cold War’

Tickets: £12

Evening Session

Civic Centre, Berkhamsted

19:30

Film: The Tenth Man (1988)

(100 minutes, UK; Director, Jack Gold; starring Anthony Hopkins, Kristin Scott Thomas and Derek Jacobi)

Classification: PG

Introduced by Jack Gold (film director) who will also lead a post-film discussion

Tickets: £10

Saturday 29th September

Talks and Events in Deans’ Hall, Berkhamsted School

Morning Session

9:45 – 11:00

Ian Thomson (author)

‘Graham Greene in Tallin’

11:00, Break for Tea and Coffee

11:30 – 12:45

Dr. Christopher Hull (University of Nottingham)

‘Sex, Drugs and Communism: Greene’s visits to Cuba’

Tickets: £14

12:45, Break for Lunch

Afternoon Session

14:15 – 15:15

Prof. Peter Evans (Film Studies, Queen Mary, University of London)

‘Belgravia, Vienna, Havana: Carol Reed in Greeneland’

15:15, Break for Tea and Coffee

15.45 – 16.45

Prof. Thomas P. O'Connor introduces a screening of his own documentary film, Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene (USA, 2012)

Early Evening Session

Deans’ Hall, Berkhamsted School

18:15 – 18:45

Book Launch

Dr. Jon Wise and Mike Hill present The Works of Graham Greene: A Reader’s Bibliography and Guide by Jon Wise and Mike Hill (London and New York: Continuum, 2012, 416 pages)

and

Birthday Toast

Proposed by the Principal of Berkhamsted School, Mark Steed

18:45 – 20:00

Quentin Falk (author and critic)

‘Film adaptations of Greene’, an illustrated talk

Tickets: £12

Late Evening Session

Old Hall, Berkhamsted School

20:15

Dinner

Followed by after-dinner speaker Clive Francis (actor, caricaturist and illustrator)

Tickets: £33

Saturday 29th September Alternative Event

Deans’ Hall, Berkhamsted School

9.30 – 16.30

A New Creative Writing Workshop

A freshly devised one-day course on the relationship of character and plot in Prose Fiction and Screenplay

This event includes detailed analysis of Graham Greene's The Basement Room (later re-titled The Fallen Idol) as prose fiction and The Third Man as a screenplay, as a stimulus to participants' own writing.

It also includes the announcement of the titles for the GGBT Creative Writing Awards for 2013, breaks for tea or coffee and attendance at the Interview with Sir Derek Jacobi at 16:15.

Advance booking is essential to guarantee a place on the Creative Writing Workshop.

Workshop Leaders: Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone (novelist and short story writer) and William Ivory (lower image above) (screenwriter for BBC TV and film and playwright).

Tickets: £35.00

Sunday 30th September

9:00 – 9:45

David Pearce (Founding Trustee and former Festival director, lecturer and author of 'Stamboul Train: The Timetable for 1932' in Dangerous Edges of Graham Greene)

Tour of some areas of the School especially associated with Graham Greene

Prior registration: essential. Meeting point: Old Hall

Free of charge

Morning Session Only

Talks in Newcroft, Berkhamsted School

10.00 – 11:00

Dr. Brigitte Timmermann (author of The Third Man's Vienna and 'Sigmund Freud and Graham Greene in Vienna' in Dangerous Edges of Graham Greene, lecturer and researcher)

‘The Third Man - A comparative text analysis’

11:00, Break for Tea and Coffee

11:30 – 12:45

Prof. Neil Sinyard (Festival Director)

‘Temple of Doom: some reflections on Graham Greene, Wee Willie Winkie and the Shirley Temple controversy’

Tickets: £14

Farewell Lunch in Old Hall

13:00 – 14:30

Buffet lunch with wine

Tickets: £22

Prof. Neil Sinyard: Festival Director

Prof. Sinyard taught in the Department of Film Studies at the University of Hull (England, UK). His many publications include 'Graham Greene and Charlie Chaplin' in Dangerous Edges of Graham Greene (2011), Graham Greene: A Literary Life (2003), Jack Clayton (2000), Clint Eastwood (1995), Silent Movies (1995), Mel Gibson (1993), Marilyn (1992), Classic Movies (1988), Films of Steven Spielberg (1987), Filming Literature: The Art of Screen Adaptation (1986) and Journey Down Sunset Boulevard: Films of Billy Wilder (1979).

Full details of the programme may be seen on the Festival’s website and in the printed Handbook.

Details of the programme may change. Changes may be seen on the Festival website or on its Facebook page.

Tickets may be ordered in three ways:

(i) by post from the Box Office, 42, Grange Road, Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, CM23 5NQ, England, UK

(ii) by telephone on 0044-1279-757517, or

(iii) by e-mail from boxoffice@grahamgreenebt.org

Graham Greene Birthplace Trust: Creative Writing Awards 2012

To enter the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s Creative Writing Awards, writers are invited to submit written texts under one or more of seven categories, and a panel of judges will decide the best entries. Awards will be announced, and winning texts may be displayed for the public to read at the Graham Greene International Festival in Berkhamsted (pictured above) (England, UK) in September 2012 and on the Festival's website.

Awards are offered in the following categories:

(i)          best prose fiction writer;

(ii)         best prose thriller writer;

(iii)        best prose travel writer;

(iv)       best screenplay writer;

(v)        best (prose or screenplay) writer under the age of twenty-one years on 1st April 2012;

(vi)       best (prose or screenplay) Berkhamstedian writer (i.e. a writer who is a pupil at Berkhamsted School on 1st April 2012);

(vii)      best (prose or screenplay) Old Berkhamstedian writer (i.e. a writer who is a former pupil at BerkhamstedSchool on 1st April 2012).

Prose writers must begin with the following line, and continue from there:

‘A voice near his / her/ my foot said, “Got a cigarette?”….’

Screenplay writers must embed this line somewhere in their dialogue:

‘A voice near his / her/ my foot said, “Got a cigarette?”….’

The rules and practices governing the Awards are:

(a)        each entry shall be written mostly in the English language and shall have a title; each prose entry shall be no more than 800 words; each screenplay entry shall be written on no more than four sides of A4 paper in a normal font size (e.g. Times New Roman 11pt); each entry shall be a complete text and not an extract from a larger text;

(b)        each entry shall be typed, shall be submitted as a pdf file and attached to an e-mail message sent to the Awards' Secretary [e-mail: RGuy@berkhamstedschool.org ] by the closing date, which is 1st April 2012;

(c)         each entry must be original and unpublished, must be submitted under a specific category, and must have been written by the person who submits the work;

(d)        a writer may submit an entry in more than one category, provided that the entry is different in each case;

(e)         a writer must also supply full contact details, including real name, full postal address and telephone number;

(f)         a writer who submits an entry in category (v) or (vi) or (vii) must also present evidence of status and eligibility to the Awards' Secretary along with the entry;

(g)         entries received after the closing date shall not be considered for an Award;

(h)        writers shall be responsible for the appropriateness, suitability, decency and legality of their own written entries, and neither the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust nor its judges nor any of its members or associates shall be responsible for the content of such entries;

(i)          an entry which is deemed to be inappropriate, unsuitable, obscene, offensive or illegal shall not be considered for an Award, and may be the subject of legal action;

(j)         Awards shall be announced at the Graham Greene International Festival in 2012;

(k)        an Award shall be not made under a specific category, if in the opinion of the judges there is no entry which merits an Award;

(l)          the decisions of the judges shall be final, and no correspondence shall be entered into.

Further information on and any amendments concerning the Awards may be seen on one of the GGBT's Facebook pages, which may be accessed from the website, and here on the Festival ex-Director's Blog: http://grahamgreenefestival.blogspot.com/

The Awards will be judged by Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, Creina Mansfield, William Ivory and Dermot Gilvary.