I am excited and honored to hear that my short screenplay THE FUNERAL has won 1st place in the annual screenplay competition hosted by Women in Film and Video New England.

I always get a bit shy sharing my little victories. They are so hard to come by and when they happen, I tend to hold onto them in quiet happiness just in case they somehow get ripped away. However, I think it’s safe to share this little victory since they made an official announcement and everything!

The other winners are both amazing women, and I feel grateful and honored to be in this group. We’re doing a table reading for the winners next week so that we can hear how actors interpret our stories. We’ll also have a director there to answer questions and to help us each take our scripts to the next level.

I really love my short script since it has subtle connections to my own losses and the feelings that come with losing my mother. My secret passion is to get this short script made into a short film. So, I am going to see what it weill take to crowdfund the project, get the people I need, and see this story brought to life.

Thank you WOMEN IN FILM & VIDEO-NEW ENGLAND INC. It was so nice to get this news. Here’s the official announcement and a link to their blog post that has additional details, if you’d like to check it out.

When the Irish music album Tears of Stone came out, I used to listen to it over and over again. I loved it. There was this one song called “The Fiddling Ladies” that is about 10 minutes long, and I enjoyed listening to it while I drove home from work. My mind would clear, replaced by images and emotions that filtered to the top of my thoughts in stark relief – mom, Ireland, death, anger, sadness, joy, dancing, family, music. All of these images fed into the story that turned into my 10 minute short screenplay “The Funeral.”

I held onto the script for a few years. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I knew I had to write it. When my friend JoAnn (which is also my mother’s name) suggested that I enter something into the WIFVNE short screenplay contest, I  decided to take a chance. It was my first short screenplay, this was my first screenplay contest, and I never imagined that I would win. I am still smiling happily, not so much for my little victory but for the thought that this would have made my mother so happy. She had so little in life, but the one thing she had in spades was love. I feel like this script and this win is my way of honoring her and my memory of her.

Here’s the song “The Fiddling Ladies,” if you’d like to listen to it: