Summary: Ex-Monty Python member Terry Jones writes a weekly piece for the "Input" column of the Young Guardian, in which he argues a case for something he feels strongly about. Terry describes how he gets ideas and goes about the process of research and writing. Terry illustrates how he tries to find an unusual angle to writing an argument and compares different approaches.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Jaci Stephen is the television reviewer of the Evening Standard. She moves through the world of television in numerous ways-at launches and previews, inside television companies, and sitting at home watching programs. She describes how she goes about writing, the problems posed by different genres, and the restrictions placed upon her writing by the nature of her audience-the readers of a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Mary Peplow and Debra Shipley write guidebooks. In this program, they describe different ways in which they accumulate information for their projects and how they select from their research, edit, and shape it. The program is based on their writing for London: The Good Tour Guide, and focuses in detail on the research, collection, and writing up of information for a tour around a Ford...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: How can a handful of words, scribbled on a napkin or a train schedule, grow into a timeless play? How does a storyteller create characters with lives and intentions of their own? Is writing a miraculous act, impossible to explain or describe, or is it 90 percent perspiration? In this program, a chorus of famous authors discuss creative strategies that lead to emotionally charged stories and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, the widely-respected press and television journalist John Pilger introduces ideas about reporting. He describes his basic training, and some of the editorial constraints on his writing. He advocates principles of simplicity, truthfulness, meticulous checking of facts, and steadfastness in the face of powerful censors. He gives examples of brave reporting by V. H. Russell (of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Being a writer isn't all book signings and fat royalty checks. By looking squarely at the potential downside of the writing life-rejection letters, second-novel syndrome, and really bad reviews-this program offers insider tips on coping while encouraging viewers to press on to success. Professional writers such as Martin Amis, Pat Conroy, Joyce Carol Oates, and Maxine Hong Kingston are joined...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Crime writing and the memoir are highlighted in this volume. In segment one, author/journalist Martin J. Smith shares his knowledge about the differences between mystery, crime, and suspense; how to know if you have a solid concept; and five elements that are necessary for success in a crime-related genre. In segment two, author and former columnist Adair Lara walks viewers through The Arc, an...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: How important is the opening line of a book? Does a writer always have to know what is going to happen next? Where should the line be drawn between historic fact and historical fiction? And what are the particular challenges of writing a biography? Drawing on the expertise of Edvard Radzinsky, Fay Weldon, Anson Cameron, John Lanchester, Nicholas Shakespeare, and other respected authors, this...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: What is poetry, and what place does it have in today's society? In an attempt to answer these questions, two filmmakers stood an old refrigerator on a busy San Francisco street corner, invited passersby to compose poems using magnetic poetry kits, and filmed the intriguing results. Both funny and poignant, this jewel of a program will make a provocative addition to courses on creative writing,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: After the pen and paper have been gathered, what comes next? In this program, Fay Weldon, Janet Evanovich, Richard Ford, Amit Chaudhuri, Isobelle Carmody, and other highly regarded authors share their approaches to launching a story. From how to jumpstart the imagination to deciding whether to write for a specific market, these writers candidly speak their minds-even about the dreaded writer's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: From blogs, to e-books, to online reviews, this program introduces viewers to what it's like to be a writer in a technological age. Brief stories of blogs such as Washingtonienne and Belle de Jour that became books (and one book, Jim Munroe's An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil, that masqueraded as a blog) and a quick interview with a successful e-book publisher are balanced by two short panel...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program traces the evolution of writing from its pictograph and hieroglyph antecedents. Recent discoveries have revealed that the earliest alphabet was corrupted shorthand for Egyptian hieroglyphs, developed by Semitic mercenaries. As the Roman alphabet became dominant in the Western world, indigenous languages were lost as Roman law and the Latin alphabet became a tool by which minority...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Authenticity is essential to any novel worth reading, and serious authors will go to great lengths to establish it. Drawing on the insights of Roddy Doyle (Oh, Play That Thing), Andrew Pyper (The Trade Mission), Kerri Sakamoto (One Hundred Million Hearts), and Ray Robertson (Moody Food), this program explains why solid facts make great fiction. Their emphasis on firsthand experience via...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the world of literature, weak plots are lamentable, but weak characters are fatal. "You've got to be involved with them," says Vikram Seth. "You can't find them boring. If you find them boring, forget it. Gathering the insights of Seth, Dorothy Dunnett, Emma Tom, Neal Drinnan, Claire Messud, and other experienced authors, this program spells out the essentials of characterization, from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Updike, Roth, Barth, Irving: their names reverberate in the halls of modern American literature. In this NewsHour program, these four literary icons—along with the highly regarded writers Frank McCourt and Susan Sontag—offer insights into their books and the heady, and sometimes frustrating, process of writing them. Episodes include…* Irish Ashes—A Conversation with Frank McCourt: Elizabeth...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, novelist V. S. Naipaul, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature, explores the relationship between a writer and his work, offering insights into his life, his career, and his subtly incisive novel/memoir The Enigma of Arrival. In particular, he contrasts the inspiration of living in the English countryside with the Caribbean, Indian, and African influences that dominate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005