The Don & Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting

Palo Alto writer Kevin Sharp was a previous runner-up in the Don & Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. The Nicholls -- as they are called in the industry -- are considered the most prestigious screenwriting competition of the numerous ones that exist across the U.S. and the world. Aspiring writers are advised to consider both the prestige of a contest and past winners’ track records, before committing money for an entry fee. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) has administered the fellowships since 1986; the program was born in 1985 as a collaboration between Gee Nicholl (widow of film producer Don Nicholl) and Julian Blaustein.

The Nicholls recognize up to five amateur screenwriters each year with a $35,000 prize for each. Over $4 million in total has been awarded since the program’s inception. All fellowship winners are expected to complete one new feature film screenplay during the following year; quarterly prize payments are made to assist writers with living expenses, giving them time and freedom to focus on their creative work.

Writers who have earned less than $25,000 profressionally are eligible to enter. Screenplays must be original works, written in English, between 70-160 pages. Scripts are read via multiple rounds of voting; each is read at least twice, while the further a script advances the more times it is read. The quarterfinal round is made up of approximately 5 percent of entries; the semifinal round is approximately 2 percent. Typically, 10-15 scripts reach the finals each year. As of 2017, over 7,000 total entries were received.

Past winners who have gone on to professional writing careers include Alison Anders, Jeffrey Eugenides, Susannah Grant, Karen Moncrieff, Michael A. Rich, Doug Atchison, and Deston Daniel Cretton.

Chuck Palahniuk's ADJUSTMENT DAY

Before this year, author Chuck Palahniuk's most recent book was 2014’s Beautiful You, which featured a number of names thanked in the acknowledgments, including Kevin Sharp of Palo Alto, CA. The author's much anticipated new novel, Adjustment Day, released on May 1, 2018.

Adjustment Day's blurb reads as follows: People pass the word only to those they trust most: Adjustment Day is coming. They’ve been reading a mysterious book and memorizing its directives. They are ready for the reckoning. 

Palahniuk’s best known work, 1996’s Fight Club, won both the 1997 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and the Oregon Book Award for best novel. Director David Fincher helmed a film adaptation in 1999, starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter, and released by 20^th Century Fox.

Palahniuk followed Fight Club with the books Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Haunted, Choke (film adaptation released in 2008), and Lullaby (also a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award winner and currently in pre-production as an independent film). Beautiful You is about Penny Harrigan, an employee of a Manhattan law firm, who becomes the object of affection for mysterious tech billionaire C. Linus Maxwell. The novel received mixed reviews.

Kevin Sharp’s name appeared in the Beautiful You acknowledgments due to his contribution to the 2014 horror thriller Starry Eyes, directed by Dennis Widmeyer, founder of the website chuckpalahniuk [dot] net.

I Liked The Book Better

A new podcast called I Liked the Book Better is co-hosted by writer Kevin Sharp of Palo Alto, CA. Each episode of the show compares a novel or short story with its cinematic adaptation; the hosts review the similarities and major changes, then decide which version of the two they prefer.

Episodes include The Shining, written by Stephen King and adapted by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson; A Scanner Darkly, written by Philip K. Dick and adapted by Richard Linklater; American Gods, written by Neil Gaiman and adapted for television by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green; Minority Report, written by Philip K. Dick and adapted by Jon Cohen and Scott Frank; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey and adapted by Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben.

The show can be found on iTunes or directly through the site Ilikedthebook [dot] com.

There are a number of challenges in executing a successful adaptation from one written medium to another. Two major ones are:

1) Making the internal into external.  Novels and short stories can take readers inside the head of a character (or characters) through first person narration. Hearing the thoughts can be entertaining and captivating; however, watching a character simply think onscreen isn’t visually dramatic. One way around this is to include voiceover in the filmed version, but overreliance on this technique gets away from what film does best and give the impression of the screenwriter leaning too heavily on the original prose.

2) Dealing with the length problem. A typical screenplay runs between 100-120 pages. A novel might run 200, 300, or even 1000. Numerous subplots might have to be pared down or jettisoned altogether in shaping the story for the screen. If the adaptors have the option of presenting, say, a TV series or miniseries, then much more of the book can be ported over. A short story, on the other hand, could present the opposite challenge: how to expand a shorter work into something that fills a movie’s expected runtime.

2018 San Francisco International Film Festival

Palo Alto, CA writer Kevin Sharp is a regular attendee of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFilm). The festival, which originated in 1957, is the oldest of its kind in North America; it is hosted by the nonprofit San Francisco Film Society. Honors such as the Directing Award, New Directors Award, and the Golden Gates Award are distributed each year. The festival’s Cinema By The Bay program highlights feature, short, and documentary films about and/or set in the Bay Area.

The 2018 festival featured the premiere of the film How to Talk to Girls At Parties, adapted from a 2006 short story by Neil Gaiman and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Mitchell previously directed 2001’s Hedwig and The Angry Inch. Gaiman’s story, first published in his book Fragile Things, won both the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Short Story. Honorees at the 2018 festival included actress Charlize Theron and director Wayne Wang. Programming was held at various venues around the city, including the Roxie, Castro, and Victoria theaters, along with San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).

New 100 Word Story Anthology

Palo Alto, CA based writer Kevin Sharp has a short story in the 2018 anthology Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story, published by Outpost 19. 100 Word Story is a flash fiction website founded in 2011 by Grant Faulkner, Beret Olsen, and Lynn Mundell. Sportin’ Jack, Paul Strohm’s book of 100 word stories, was an initial inspiration for the group (the 100 word form is also called a “drabble”). The site often posts photo prompts and asks contributors to submit an exactly 100 word story tied to it. Other pieces are submitted to the site without prompts, but still must be the prescribed length. The new anthology contains stories chosen from the site’s history. 100 Word Story’s selections have been chosen for Wigleaf’s “best of” short stories award, and for the annual Best Small Fictions series. Amber Sparks, Hilary Leichter, and Michael Martone provide blurbs for Nothing Short Of…

Outpost 19, based in San Francisco, also publishes such fiction and non-fiction titles as This Is: Essays on Jazz by Aaron Gilbreath, Following Disasters by Nancy McCabe, and Understudies by Ravi Mangla. Joe Roemer is publisher and senior editor for the label.

Kevin Sharp’s story “In Blackest Night,” about a young couple spending the night in a comic book store, was originally published on 100 Word Story in 2014.

California Comic Book Conventions

Writer and comic book fan Kevin Sharp of Palo Alto regularly attends such comic book conventions as San Diego Comic Convention, also known as Comic-Con International: San Diego. The show, which began life as the Golden State Comic Book Convention in 1970, takes place over four days each summer at the San Diego Convention Center. Attendance regularly exceeds 120,000; in 2017 the convention drew over 130,000. Comic Con originally started as a gathering of comic book fans, dealers, and creators, but its scope has grown along with is attendance; comic books are now only one aspect of the show, along with videogames, television, movies, toys, and animation. The convention’s annual cosplay Masquerade contest includes such awards as Best in Show, Most Humorous, Best Young Fan, and Best Re-Creation.

Comic-Con’s organizers are also responsible for two smaller conventions: WonderCon and APE (Alternative Press Expo). WonderCon was originally held in Oakland, CA, before moving to San Francisco. Construction at the city’s Moscone Center led to the convention moving to Southern California in 2012. APE is a convention for independent and self-published comics and cartoons; it has been held in both San Jose and San Francisco since its inception in 1994.

In 2016, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and his partners started the Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose. The convention is a blending of comic books, genre media, and technology. Fans at the show might meet a star from a Marvel movie, along with an esteemed AI programmer; an artist at the show might find themselves signing comic books across the aisle from NASA’s booth. The show’s theme for 2018 is “What Does It Mean to Be Human?”

Association of Writers and Writing Programs Sponsors Several Awards

A former book reviewer and feature writer with Bookmarks Magazine, Palo Alto, California, resident Kevin Sharp has published his work in other outlets, including on 100 Word Story and Fiction Attic Press, as well. A member of several professional organizations, Kevin Sharp belongs to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and attends its conference. 

AWP supports, advocates for, and provides resources to its almost 50,000 member writers. It also represents more than 550 university and college creative writing programs as well as 150 conferences and centers geared toward writers. Established in 1967, the nonprofit organization seeks to advance writing and encourage literary achievement.

In addition to conferences and other gatherings, AWP sponsors six annual awards for writers, including the:

* George Garrett Award. Named after a teacher, author, and editor, this award is given to an individual who has donated time, labor, and money to support other writers. Winners receive $2,000 as well as travel accommodations and registration to attend AWP’s annual conference. 

* Small Press Publisher Award. Given to nonprofit presses and literary journals, this award acknowledges the role of these organizations in publishing creative work and introducing new authors. Winners receive $2,000 and a complimentary exhibit booth at the AWP conference.

* Kurt Brown Prizes. Previously known as the WC&C Scholarship Competition, this award is presented to emerging writers in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Kurt Brown founded WC&C, which hosts writers’ conferences and festivals. Winners receive $500 each to attend a conference, retreat, or festival.