Margaret's June Nearly Monthly News!
Hey there, hope your summer is off to a great start! As I write this, the WGA is still on strike, and I have a feeling I'll be reporting the same at the beginning of my next newsletter. On the other hand, in April I didn't think we were going to strike at all, so with any luck, my powers of prognostication have not improved!
Lately, I've been reflecting on how my strike routine is almost the exact opposite of what my life has looked like during the last three years of the COVID-19 pandemic: I'm leaving my house every day, I get plenty of exercise, and (this is the biggest difference) I see people in person all the time. Walking the picket lines, I've run into people I worked with more than a decade ago, and made new friends too. After years of social occasions being highly orchestrated events, the sheer quantity of casual run-ins is head-spinning. Not that that's a bad thing--it's nice to connect with the larger screenwriter community again--but still, it's very different.
I hope the strike ends soon, but in the meantime, at least there are side benefits to our ongoing sidewalk negotiations?
From my Desk
This month I did proofs for a flash story that will be appearing in a new anthology, 99 Fleeting Fantasies! The project is scheduled to Kickstart later this year, so I'll be posting more details as I have them.
On the TV front, obviously I don't have anything new in the works these days, but I'm still waiting for scripts I wrote back in 2020 to come out, so, fingers crossed, I'll have new episodes to share with you soon. (I love animation, but it is not the field to go into for quick gratification.)
What I'm Reading
As previewed in May, this month I've been reading Burn it Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan. Based on the Vanity Fair excerpt that detailed the toxic atmosphere at Lost, I was expecting an exposé of Hollywood horrors. While Ryan shares horrors aplenty, overall the book is more concerned with exploring systems in our industry that enable abuse and how we can begin to dismantle them. The book isn't always an easy read, but it's well-reported and gives me hope that when we go back to work, our contract won't be the only place writers and others will see improvements in their working lives.
From the Cutting Room Floor of the Duolingo Dystopia
Duo tries to be sympathetic to the whole Hollywood mess, but...
le sigh...
And That's the Nearly Monthly News!
It's officially summer! Got trips or other exciting plans? Drop me a line! I'll be here at home, hitting the pavement and trying to stay hydrated. In the meantime, see you in July!