"Is It Fixed?"
...I hear some of you ask. "Don't you just give places to writers you know anyway?"
It's true we do know many of the writers who make it on to the course. But that's because me and the team spend the rest of the year reading work and meeting writers. It's our job to know as many writers as possible. We read submissions from agents, go to the theatre, speak at courses, attend readings, talk to other parts of the 主播大秀, get scripts sent from the Writersroom - all year round. I have - oh - fifteen scripts from writers who's work I've never read on my desk at this precise moment.
However, the joy of the Writers Academy application process is that total unknowns (to us) make it through. I've had a look at this year's short list to give you an idea.
28 writers were shortlisted for the workshops. Of those...
Six were writers who's work we hadn't come across at all
Six had applied in previous years (one of those had got through to the interview stage and one had been shortlisted in previous years)
Six were writers whose work we knew because their agents had sent it to us
Five were writers whose work had been sent to us by the Writersroom
One was a writer I met on a Writersroom course
Two were theatre writers who we'd met after seeing their work
One was recommended to us by Radio Drama
One was recommended to me by a Script Editor