Category: about writing

January 2022

It’s been an eventful month here! On the positive side, I’ve gained a sale to Neo-opsis. Then I had a win for “Garden Variety Aliens” on PitchNow Screenwriting Competition and it gained a coveted spot on Coverfly’s Redlist! In 2021, I also won another WOTF #9 for me, for “Daze” my film industry portal to hell story!

I’m also grieving with the rest of the APEX writers group due to the death of our leader, Dave Wolverton / Farland January 14, 2022. He was a wonderful example of what a great writing teacher can accomplish. He was also a well known fantasy and science fiction author whose work I love to read. I didn’t know him personally, unlike many in APEX who had worked with him a lot over the years, but I benefited from his compassionate devotion to excellence in all he did. A great father and husband, his obituary is available at the funeral home site.

It’s a difficult time for those of us who were members of #APEX WritingCommunity His memory is a blessing. He was kind, encouraging, and full of writing wisdom. As a primarily scriptwriter, you’d think he would not have good advice for me, but his writing courses are stellar and useful in whatever format you write in. Also, his inclusiveness was wonderful for all who wanted to write.

2021 Quarter 4 #WOTF Cat Girczyc HM for “New Tudors”

WOtF WIn for story The New Tudors

#WOTF Writers of the Future 2021 Q4 – Honorable Mention for my story “The New Tudors”. This is a tale of first contact marred by a historian, leading to very strange transactions for the Trading ship, the Quotidian, and Captain Abraya.

Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash

Jessica Fraser short film at Fungi Film Festival 2021

Jessica’s short film “A Mushroom Poem” is featured in the upcoming Fungi Film Festival from Nov 11-28th 2021. She’s part of the Session 3-A(Manita) group.  Tickets are $8 USD per viewing or $40 for the whole festival. There are three 3-day blocks so there are viewing times #film #studentfilm go to https://www.fungifilmfest.com/tickets/p/fffticket

Screening times for “A Mushroom Poem” are:

  • Saturday November 13, 2021 at 6 p.m. PST
  • Thursday November 18, 2021 at 10 a.m. PST
  • Sunday November 28, 2021 at 7 p.m. PST

These times are great because they allow for decent viewing times in more time zones. Europe, Australia, North America and other places on the globe have films entered.

Coverfly Pitch Week 2021

Excellent news! LCPA and my profile have combined to get me noticed! I’m part of Coverfly’s excellent Pitch Week program. We had an information call this week and then the invitations were sent out. I’m really excited to have a meeting as only about half of those chosen get actual meetings. They do a lot of work to interest industry professionals and get our materials in front of them.

For more information on Coverfly click here.

Auroras Coverfly
Aurora Awards – always hoping for a third!

DEAL at Banff

We signed up today for the lottery to get some great Buyers and Production Partners Meetings at the Banff World Media Festival via their #BANFFXchange platform. Put up the new graphic that Jessica did for DEAL our 2nd #project at #Banff2021. She is working as my PA on the Banff project this year. We’ll pitch my scripts: “Lights, Camera, Paranormal Action!” and “Deal”. #BanffMedia

Banff is also about learning and there are many interesting webinars available that we have signed up for.

DEAL at Banff

Creative Writing News & Deadlines

Spring 2021 Cat’s desk
April 28, 2021

Happy to announce that I’ve won another (#6) Writers of the Future Honorable Mention! This is for my new story “Some Thing” which is a comic Prairie fantasy. WOTF is a wonderful competition and to get an HM means you’re in the top 5% of the entrants. They get entrants from all over the world and the numbers are in the thousands, so it does mean something to a creative writing career in science fiction and fantasy.

I sent the story “Rachel’s Vacation” to the March 31, 2021 deadline for Quarter 2. This is another comic story and involves religion, which may make it a hard sell. I’m still working on “Favrile” but it is turning out to be a novella, sigh.

March 28, 2021 – Just learned that I’ve sold another 2 poems to Polar Borealis Magazine! That’s terrific news and I look forward to seeing the cover of the magazine. Polar Borealis always has a really attractive and interesting cover featuring the work of an SFF artist.

lego space ship
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Also, I am working on my next sci-fi screenplay, called “Dealers” as a working title. My major deadline for this is the Banff Media Festival 2021 so I have to have a decent draft and a good pitch by mid June this year. I’m taking the festival days off work, in order to learn and pitch as much as I can.

The March 31 Second Quarter 2021 deadline for Writers of the Future is also coming up really fast. I have a short story I want to submit for this deadline. I thought it was ‘done’ but then the story was significantly changed after my first reader looked at it, so, I’m trying to finish the updates of the deadline. The story is called “Favrile” at the moment and is a crashed spaceship narrative.

Creative writing deadlines all have to be worked around my busy corporate day job in communications. This creates challenges but also means that I’ve learned a great deal about project management for creative work.

One of the first principles is: make a goal but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t achieve it. Goals are good and valuable as sign posts.

Jessica Fraser Short Films at Standalone Film Festival!

Jessica Fraser short films

Jessica Fraser has films selected for inclusion in the Standalone Film Festival 2021 Los Angeles. They are NOW streaming on uvtcineplex.com and you can vote for her films there! This online festival takes place from Feb 2021 to 31st March 2021. It offers different levels of ticket prices, from $2 to $12.99 USD. There are 500 films in this festival! Enjoy!

You can by your SFFA streaming ticket to watch all the films at this link: https://uvtcineplex.com/subscriptions/

NOTE: We are moving our filmmaker content for Jessica Fraser to a new website soon! More details as that develops. So much is going on in her professional life that she needs her own wordpress site to cover all the showings of Jessica Fraser short films!

Best Film Awards Win!

Jessica R.J. Fraser just won another Laurel for her short film Seashells! She is named as a semi-finalist in the Best Film Awards, Best Director competition out of London, England. We’re very pleased to have her work recognized internationally!

Best Film Awards Jessica Fraser

To view click here: Seashells

To find out about the Best Film Awards, follow @best_film_awards