Email I just got from an actor/director friend in Boston, trolling for writers to workshop their WIPs with his company this summer:
Hey, have you written any scripts? Got any lying around that you want to send my way? Or possibly your friends? Village Theatre Project has a summer, playwrighting "retreat". We get a playwright, a director and some professional actors together and work on a script. I think this year it would be about a week long and it would be northwest of Boston, in Ashby (The Ashby Retreat, we have so cleverly dubbed it), August 4-12th. We have already produced two plays that were originally workshopped at our retreat. The play could be a rough first draft, it could be a polished 4th draft or whatever. Just needs to be something a playwright is interested in working on with some other folks. And hopefully not about crack-addicts or sex-trafficking of children. Our audience is new and we are trying to work up to those things.
The company website may not have fully updated info on the retreat; if anyone's interested or knows a New England-area writer (or one willing to spend a week there) who might be interested, ping me and I'll give you his email addy.
He and his wife are smart, funny, thoroughly splendid people, both gifted performers and writers, and it should be a great experience.
So a major group of Arab investors quoted about 410 words from a post of mine on Gristmill without attribution. They are working with the company I wrote about; so they did not need the research; obviously they liked the wording. They are a generally unpleasant group, so part of me wants to be an asshole about this.
But it was a post I never expected to be paid for, and all they need to do to make it fair use is attribute it to me. And really I'd much rather get the credit and the free advertising than have them take it down - which means being tactful and friendly I guess.
I hope they attribute it properly without any hassle, Gar.
I need a hand. Anyone in receipt of a nice rejection letter? I find myself in need of one and can't, for the life of me, think of the right way to say "hell no!" that won't be crushing.
I appreciate your interest in (whatever). Your (insert something from cover or resume here) is an accomplishment to be proud of. However, I have filled the position. (You can put a little more detail if you think there is some constructive criticism here if there is some to offer). Good luck in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
You
Here's a blog post by an agent, about her rejection letter. The previous post has more discussion, too. [link]
I should have specified, it's for publishing their work, but I think I can work with that. Thanks Daisy.
I'm weirdly obsessed with agents' blogs.
I read that one too, but I've been a little swamped lately--completely missed that post.
I'm sorry I wasn't here, Deena! I do pretty good rejection letters -- after a while I had it down to a science to include something positive (and specific) about the work, as well as one or two good reasons for why it didn't work for me (por the market).
Not that I ever liked writing them, mind you. Except to the complete wackos who wrote whole novels about their pet lizard's nihilsm, or a pair of sugar-addicted nuns who painted pornographic Easter eggs and made billions, or things like that.
