Screenwriters Workshop’s 2008 Annual Membership Meeting will be held October 11, 9:30am to 12 pm, at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. It is free and open to the public.
This year our featured guest is Screenwriter Jeff Forrester. Following the keynote speaker the ScreenLabs Challenge winners will be announced. Here’s the program:
• 9:30 am – Doors open – Networking and bagels
• 10:00 am – Opening remarks
• 10:15 am – A conversation and Q&A with Screenwriter Jeff Forester
• 11:30 am – Announce and screen ScreenLabs Challenge ’08 winners
• 12:00 pm – Close
About our featured guest:
Jeff Forester attended the MFA program at University of Oregon. While there he studied writing with Ken Kesey, writer of “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.” Together, with eleven other students, the class wrote and published “Caverns” on Viking Press. Forester continued writing, publishing in Rolling Stone, San Francisco Chronicle and Whole Earth Review. He also wrote “Forest for the Trees: How Humans Shaped the Northwoods,” winner of Choice Magazine’s “Outstanding Academic Title” as well as a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award and Arrowhead Literary Award. It was while writing “Forest for the Trees” that Jeff began working on his first screenplay, “Horses,” with McKnight Screenwriting Award winner Jim Berg. “Horses” has placed or won every competition into which it has been entered. In 2005 Forester won a Jerome travel and study grant to research a write a novel about the Cornish tin miners that came to northern Minnesota to open the iron mines in the late 1880s. While living in Cornwall with his family, he learned that “Horses” was a finalist in the CineStory competition, and flew to Palm Springs for their four day workshop.
While there he pitched an idea he had for a film based on research from his Forest for the Trees. Four months later Forester sold that idea to Lorenzo DiBoniventura (“Transformers”, “Constantine”) “and was hired to write, “Flashpoint” by Paramount. “Flashpoint” is a $150 million “tentpole” with a strong environmental message. Forester is still the writer of record on the project. In 2007 Forester sold “A Lifetime in Heat” to Shampoo 160. Both films are currently in development. Forester lives in Minneapolis where he lives with his wife Allie, and daughters Billie and Daisy.
Hope to see you there!
