Career advancement and camaraderie are on the cards this weekend as once again writers gather from all over the world to network, learn, share and generally talk shop at Regent’s Park University for the London Screenwriter’s Festival.
Moving from it’s usual October slot the festival’s slightly earlier placement this September brings us a warmer weekend when the usual bustle of the campus is quieter without it’s term time students, however with many hundreds of screenwriters and a myriad of seminars, events and gathering spaces there is plenty to do and the weekend often seems to disappear faster than you can say optioned, in the bustle of things to do and see and achieve.
Every year to me the festival feels like coming home. Especially the Friday morning arrival gathering where we take a moment to connect with each other, with what we want to achieve this weekend, and familiarise ourselves with how it all works and where to look for the things we need. We energise and inspire one another and it’s very much a participatory session where people get to let go of their discomfort and acknowledge and accept that deep desire in us that drives us all to write.
Now is the time to seize those desires, for delegates at the festival and writers following the online sharing from home or work, the London Screenwriters’ Festival is a great touchstone for where we take our writing between this year’s events to the next. For some of the writers here today this time will be life changing. For most of us, it’s a great way to never feel alone.
The festival is never an isolated event, we reach out to other writers everywere through our online networks and take advantage of the way technology can carry words far and wide so that maybe our gathering, our celebration of our craft can infect more of us. Those of us here will inadvertently spend some of our time this weekend inspiring each other.
I’ll be live tweeting and blogging @momentsoffilm sharing some of the many events and seminars and some of the festival atmosphere on the #LondonSWF hashtag all weekend (blogs into next week) so if you’re looking for something for the weekend, look no further than here. We hope there will be something of interest and inspiration for all of you. See you there and online writers. This is our weekend.
Leilani is an actor, screenwriter and filmmaker and has been blogging for the London Screenwriters’ Festival since it’s inception in 2010.
