Peter Cox, the president of the New Zealand Writers Guild, is looking for work” in Australia.  Leora Kamenetzky, chair of the Scriptwriters Guild of Israel, had a series in development that was a sure thing, until she led a work action against the broadcaster.  Australian writer Cathy Strickland just optioned a book for the very first time.  She’s glad that she had to write a treatment to get funding because the deadline gave her the discipline to get the writing done and now she’s deep inside the story and ready to draft.

One thing is clear.  Screenwriting is the same for the writers of the member guilds of  IAWG.  We have different terms of work, different contracts, different payment patterns and sometimes different languages but craft is the same.

We talked about story editing and techniques for helping writers write their best work.  We talked about structure, finding other people’s scripts to read, strategies for dealing with notes.  We shared stories about jobs and lack thereof, about unpaid rewrites and crazy things we’ve done to get gigs.  We wished we could see each other’s work.

Earlier in the week, we spent a little bit of time with writers from the Federation of Screenwriters of Europe.  I didn’t get a chance to talk craft with them but I did get to catch up briefly with Sveinbjorn I Baldivinsson.  I met Sven in 2007 when the IAWG was held in Montreal.  Then he told me that there wasn’t much work in his native Iceland.  I learned that he has moved to Norway where he supplements his writing work with a teaching gig.  Teaching seems to factor heavily into a lot of writers lives.

If not teaching, then something else besides writing.  Gail Renard, chair of the television committee of the WGGB has a book about her friendship with John Lennon coming out in November and is learning to use the social media to promote it.  Amit Leor from Israel is an actor, script doctor and playwright.  And Audrey O’Reilly, chair of Irish Playwright and Screenwriters Guild, has long directed, but recently took up photography and has an upcoming show at a Paris cafe.

We’ve all gone our separate ways now, heading for planes destined for different continents. A bond between us remains. We’re all writers after all.