Conversations with Screenwriters

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: A marvelous book for writers-- I ordered copies as Christmas presents for all of my writing students.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Stuff
Review: I've always suspected that writers would be the most interesting of all functionaries in the movies, as they're the ones who think it all up in the first place, and this book proves me right. Fascinating, probing glimpses into the hearts and minds of a marvelous collection of writers. Just buy the damn thing.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Stuff
Review: I've always suspected that writers would be the most interesting of all functionaries in the movies, as they're the ones who think it all up in the first place, and this book proves me right. Fascinating, probing glimpses into the hearts and minds of a marvelous collection of writers. Just buy the damn thing.

Rating:
Summary: Tops of its kind
Review: OK, I'm prejudiced. I read many of these interviews in the versions that were published in the Writers Guild of America's magazine and thought they were terrific. I called up my editor at Heinemann and told her that she should get in touch with Susan Katz and collect them into a book. My editor (who is obviously quite smart) did and it makes a swell book indeed. Katz is a screenwriter talking to screenwriters about writing; she asks questions from the perspective of an insider and gets real answers as opposed to the surfacey stuff you tend to get in shorter newspaper interviews. My favorite? Probably the slightly testy interview with Mike Leigh talking about how he used improvisational input from his cast in creating SECRETS AND LIES. (But then, I'm particularly interested in improv used for writing.) There isn't an ounce of fat in this book. Smart, useful stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Tops of its kind
Review: OK, I'm prejudiced. I read many of these interviews in the versions that were published in the Writers Guild of America's magazine and thought they were terrific. I called up my editor at Heinemann and told her that she should get in touch with Susan Katz and collect them into a book. My editor (who is obviously quite smart) did and it makes a swell book indeed. Katz is a screenwriter talking to screenwriters about writing; she asks questions from the perspective of an insider and gets real answers as opposed to the surfacey stuff you tend to get in shorter newspaper interviews. My favorite? Probably the slightly testy interview with Mike Leigh talking about how he used improvisational input from his cast in creating SECRETS AND LIES. (But then, I'm particularly interested in improv used for writing.) There isn't an ounce of fat in this book. Smart, useful stuff.