Screenwriting

SALT AND PEPPER

Logline:  In this true-life story, Salt and Pepper, two African American women rise to the pinnacle of the Black Entertainment Circuit as Headliners during the 1940s.  Performing the male dance form of Rhythm and Flash, Salt and Pepper confront Jim Crow, discrimination in the Black community for their sexual orientation, and a friendship wrought with personal clashes. (Biography based on the book Tappin’ at the Apollo)

*The Writer’s Lab, Semifinalist, Feature Screenplay Competition, NY

• Emerging Screenwriters Writers, Finalist, Unique Voices 2023 Winners, Historical/Biopic

• Creative Screenwriting Competition, Finalist

• Austin Film Festival Screenplay & Teleplay Competition Pitch Finalist, Austin, TX

• Willamette Writers Conference, Winner of Pitch for the Prize, Portland OR

• ISA Fast Track Fellowship, Second Round

Logline:  Cypress Grove is a short screenplay inspired by the true story: Terri, who manages a New Orleans cemetery, single-handedly confronts the massive devastation of tombs, coffins, and body parts after Hurricane Katrina. (Inspired by a True Story)

*Kansas City Women in Film and TV, Awarded Short Screenplay Grand Prize and the Winner of the best Female Protagonist in a screenplay by a female and/or a male writer, 2017. 

*Austin Film Festival, Second Round of Competition,  2017. 

The Live Oak

Logline:  Heather Landry, 10, an exceptional white artist, moves to the South where she confronts a mindset of frightening standards.  Exposed to the world of her Black friend Ruby, 10, Heather learns to meet the life’s challenges and unveils her struggles through her art.

*ISA Table Read My Screenplay Competition, Quarter-finalist, Spring 2023.

*The Writers Lab, New York Women in Film and Television, Semi-finalist, 2020.

NOT TOO BEE

Logline:  After receiving the Evil Eye curse, a twelve-year-old New Orleans girl takes fantastical journeys through her grandmother’s life to terminate the curse, but learns that the cure is from within. (Fiction: Coming of Age) 

*The Writers Lab, Quarter Finalist in Feature Screenplay Competition, New York City, NY

*Austin Film Festival Screenplay & Teleplay Competition, Second Round, Austin, TX

Four Alarm

Logline:  Returning to New Orleans, U.S. Marshal Bonnie Trahan finds her mother planning her own funeral, her dad a retired fireman chasing every siren sound, and her brother a cemetery worker dealing drugs, all of this and more, as her fiancé, a DEA officer, joins them for Thanksgiving dinner.

The Crux

Logline:   Honeymooning in Peru, a couple with opposing views become bedfellows with a murderer, a leader in an alien and a protector of an isolated tribe.

SETTLE UP

Logline: Impoverished Sicilian girll Rosa moves to New Orleans in search of a wealthy life but is faced with mother-in-law demands and mafioso control. Her dream of rags to riches results in deadly consequences. 

Acknowledgements:

My screenwriting has developed under the tutelage of Emmy nominee Cynthia Whitcomb writer, producer, screenwriter and playwright. Whitcomb was Nominated for an Emmy Award: My First Name Is Steven (1989) and is also known for Selma, Lord, Selma (1995), Buffalo Girls (1995), Mark Twain and Me (1991), Jane Doe (1983), Leave 'em Laughing (1981).

Randall Jahnson introduced me to the field of screenwriting. His works include “S.O.Z.: Soldados o Zombies,” “The Doors,” and “The Mask of Zorro.”

MIRIAM STAIRWELLSKY   (Character)

Screenwriting is exhausting!