Are
you a writer who wants to actualize your creative, critical, and commercial
potential with an existing script or an envisioned one?
Do you wish to transform an idea or story concept into a completed screenplay
ready for submission? Do you wish to penetrate the Hollywood submission maze
and have your work read and considered for production? You've come to the
right site.
WHAT I CAN OFFER:
§ A creative catalyst to your talent.
§ Boots-on-the-ground Hollywood experience working with and for you.
§ A capacity for realized empathy.
§ An astute and accurate evaluation of your work.
§ An extended awareness of story, character, conflict, dialogue, three-act
structures, reversal, and subtext.
Because of my doctoral studies in semiology with Roland Barthes, I am able
to work simultaneously on several different textual levels: from inception
through realization, all the while remaining focused on where the script
is functioning at any given moment.
WHO I AM
Most of all, a writer who shares in the creative reciprocity of mentoring
other writers. Having taught screenwriting, prose and poetry workshops,
literary and critical theory at CalArts and the French National Film School,
I am committed to providing a consultation service that is not an inert
form of communication, but a dialectic for you, the writer, and me, the
mentor, to hone your screenplay to professional and aesthetic realization.
My own screenplay experiences include Blind Side on HBO, Mise en Abyme with
Azur Films, 17 feature options, including options by Michael Hertzburg and
John Manulis; an award from the Hawaii International Film Festival, semi-final
placement in Scriptapalooza, and Second-Round selection for the Austin Film
Festival in 2006 and 2007.
Additionally, my poetry has been published in Poetry, New American Review,
Shenandoah, Beatitudes, and Paris Voices. I am a recipient of the Van Rensellaer
Poetry Prize from Columbia University. Two works of fiction have been published:
Shipwrecks and Other Drownings and Heart Quests, and sixteen book reviews
have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
MY EDUCATION AND BACKGROUND
Doctorat de 3ème Cycle, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, France. Highest
mention.
Research director: Roland Barthes.
M.F.A., Writing Division, School of the Arts, Columbia University. Honors.
Thesis director:
Mark Strand, poet laureate.
B.A. Reed College. Honors.
United States Marine Corps veteran.
ESL Instructor, Special Security School, Taif, Saudi Arabia.
Merchant Seaman, Sailors Union of the Pacific.
SERVICES AND FEES
Initial phone call or e-mail query to see if we can establish a rapport:
No fee.
Creative brainstorming by telephone or e-mail: $100 per hour.
Synopsis evaluation (tracked editing commentary within your document): $150
Character and story development: $150.
Problematics: specific response to a problem acknowledged by the writer,
e.g. sluggish 2nd act, tin dialogue, watery catharsis: $150.
Parallel mentoring: concept-to-completion weekly session with writer on
script until ready for submission: $100 hourly session by phone and computer
link.
Reading of complete script with tracked editing evaluation, plus a one-hour
phone consultation or up to four e-mails: $350,
Rewriting entire script: $1,500. Half payable on commencement of work,
the remainder paid when the writer determines the script is ready for submission.
Ghostwriting: fee determined by project.
TESTIMONIALS
"Stewart has a rare gift for finding the story-within-the-story. He seemed
to be able to read my stuff and pull out of it the very meaning I had intended
but couldn't quite reach."
Suzie Zupan, Writer
"Stewart Lindh's dazzling academic pedigree combined with his skills
as a poet, a playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and critic make him as
close to the Renaissance ideal of the 'universal man' as anyone I've ever
met."
Jon Wagner, Director, MFA Writing Program, CalArts
"I have not known anyone to be more generous with his or her time and
expertise than Stewart Lindh."
Dr. Richard Middleton Kaplan, English Department, Harper College
"Stewart, you amaze me at how deeply you got inside the soul of my
character in transforming my memoir Journey inside an Electronic Bracelet
into a screenplay."
Dolores E. Cross, Ph.D.
"Not just the best writing coach, but the most insightful, thought-provoking
teacher I've ever had."
Paul D.
"From the moment I sat down with Stewart, I knew that I had his full
attention and that he would care about my writing as much as I did, as if
it were his own."
Sarah H. Iowa Writer's Workshop
"With Stewart's help, my script was a finalist at both Sundance and
the Writer's Network Competition."
Lyle W.
"Stewart Lindh brilliantly adapted my memoir Tales of an Unorthodox
Veterinarian."
Rabbi Gideon Sorokin, DVM
"Stewart has an utterly unselfish willingness to help others succeed."
Lisa G.
"The most talented and likeable instructor I've ever met."
Nancy K.
"Stewart is the kind of person you only meet once in a lifetime."
Marlin S.
"Stewart, you gave me the opportunity to use my imagination. Thanks,
Semper Fidelis"
Mike D.
"He validated my experience and imbued it with a depth I could never
have imagined."
Susan B.
"He gave me the freedom to write."
Suzie Z. - Squaw Valley Writer's conference
RECOMMENDED READING The Teaching of Screen and Television Writing - Eugene Vale The Art of Dramatic Writing - Lajos Egri Writing Degree Zero - Roland Barthes Poetics - Aristotle
To get a sense of why I became a writer's mentor, please read Deadline
about my time with my own mentor, listed under Samples of my Writing, on
my website www.stewartlindh.com
