Scott Ryan

Joseph Dougherty

“I was a writer before I knew what a writer was.” -Joseph DoughertyJoseph Dougherty has been a successful playwright and television writer, producer, and director for more than thirty years. He's written for breakthrough series that have changed the way we look at television drama, from thirtysomething to Pretty Little Liars, winning everything from Emmys to Teen Choice Awards along the way.In A Screenwriter's Companion, Dougherty offers insights and advice both practical and nonpractical to writers and would-be writers. Dougherty's voice comes off the page with anecdotes about the writing process, hard-learned tips for survival in “the business,” and reflections on the influences that head led him to a successful career. Honestly, entertainingly, without cynicism, he gives readers permission to embrace the writer they want to be, so they can experience the rewards and satisfactions of writing. Beyond an insider's take on story and structure, dialogue, action and outlining, A Screenwriter's Companion is as much mentor as it is manual. With every insider observation about how to keep a potential producer reading till the last page of a script, there's encouragement to explore your thoughts and memories, things a writer needs to embrace in order to become more than “a pro.” In short, to see writing not as merely a career, but as a way to greater self-understanding.

Instruction, Opinion, Encouragement

A Screenwriter's Companion

Laura Brennan

C. Courtney Joyner

Shane Bitterling

Charles Austin Muir

Paul J. Salamoff

Ann Lewis Hamilton

Travis Baker

Andrew Helm

Jeffrey Seeman

John Schouweiler

James Grayford

J. E. d. Strahm

Ray G. Ing

William Paquet

Elizabeth J. Musgrave

Richard Tanne

Sean J. Yopchick

Jamison Rotch

Brian Domonic Muir

An Anthology of Short Horror Fiction Set in Tinseltown Written by Hollywood Genre Professionals

Hell Comes to Hollywood

Praise for Story Salon "Gemstones of narrative. Something new, funny, astonishing." -Los Angeles Daily News "Tales tall, tragic, and tantalizing." -Sunset Magazine "Stories from all walks and talks of life. Tales of yore and ones that make you scream for more-those that will delight with insight while moving an audience from laughter to tears." -Studio City Sun Story Salon is Los Angeles's longest running storytelling venue. What began as an alternative to stand-up clubs and self-conscious performance spaces has been challenging performers and audiences for more than a decade. Created in a North Hollywood coffee house Story Salon now reaches the globe through Podcasting, publishing, and recordings. The rules of the Story Salon haven't changed since it started: Five to seven minutes of original material performed by the author. The result is a unique blend of observation, memoir and comment that makes the Salon one of the most eclectic entertainment experiences available. More than a dozen solo theater works have been developed at Story Salon, as well as a CD of stories, and several books. "Live storytelling is a unique art form," says Story Salon founder, writer/actor/comedian Beverly Mickins. "Words spoken aloud paint pictures capable of evoking laughter and tears, the whole range of emotion. People have been telling each other stories since the first campfires, talking about the whole mix of things, important and trivial, that go into making life. Storytelling is one of the ways we figure out how to be human." Collected here for the first time in Big Book of Stories are more than forty original pieces first performed by their authors at Story Salon. It's an omnibus of memories, rants, affirmations, and shaggy-dog stories that once opened is impossible to shut. Learn more at www.storysalon.com

The Best from L.A.ýs Longest Running Storytelling Venue

The Story Salon Big Book of Stories

"A collection of more than 40 original stories first performed by their authors at Story Salon, Los Angeles' longest running storytelling venue"--Back cover.

The Best from L.A.'s Longest Running Storytelling Venue

"She was one of the working stiff actors who made American movies a sort of extended family for me. If I don't do this for her, who will?" Memory and movies collide when the narrator of Comfort and Joi, award-winning screenwriter Joseph Dougherty's imaginative blend of fiction and film fact, sets out to document the life and work of bosomy blonde bombshell Joi Lansing, a minor glamour girl who appeared in such "classics" as Hillbillys in a Haunted House and Queen of Outer Space. Alone in a borrowed house on the California coast during a winter weekend, he indulges his fascination with the pin-up who rose from extra girl to work with Orson Welles, only to end her career in grade-z horror pictures. Offbeat movie history from the fringes of Hollywood triggers haunting personal memories as he follows this "beautiful beacon in a Sargasso of bad filmmaking" and finds an unexpected path to his own past. "Dougherty is a humanist who argues that each of us has to look, listen, choose, and commit. His work is as encouraging as it is enlightening." -Douglas Heil, Prime-Time Authorship

Comfort and Joi

Joseph Dougherty

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