Attention Discussion Board regulars! Let it be known that our favorite moderator muppet is now Dr. Muppet. When you get a chance, congratulate Dr. Newcomer. Let me be the first to say, “But, you’re not a real Doctor…”

As you all know, earlier this month we had the One Week Challenge wherein participants were asked to write a 15 page thriller that takes place on or around a boat. We had over 40 entries, of which 35 fit within the parameters of the challenge. The fine folks over at iScript.com were kind enough to select one script out of the group to be recorded. The script selected is about four teenagers stranded on an old houseboat while being hunted by one of the world’s most dangerous underwater predators. That script was Bull Creek, written by Sean Elwood (aka Zombie Sean). You can listen to the mp3 of the script by clicking here. You can read along with the pdf version of the script here.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the One Week Challenge. Without a doubt, this was the best Challenge yet in terms of the quality of the scripts and the wide interpretation of the theme. You can take a look at the “writer’s choices” – scripts that the participants in the challenge thought were of merit – on the discussion board – Don

Bull Creek by Sean Elwood Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2480)

It is a flood of radio scripts! Silent Universe has release the pre-production draft of Episode 7: Hello World. Now is the time to get your input into the story before it goes to production. The teaser is Some thought that the dawn of the Second Space Age would unite humanity in a common cause. Dreams of grand utopias, fevered the minds of visionaries and futurists, who proclaimed that the stars would save us from ourselves… They couldn’t have been more wrong.. The production values on Silent Universe are fantastic. The scripts are not read, they are performed by voice actors that do this for a living. I highly recommend you sci-fi fans check it out.

On another note, more back to earth, James Whyle has release the script to his radio play A Man called Rejoice which has been broadcast numerous times by the BBC Radio 3. I haven’t found an audio copy of the play online, but you can buy it for a buck at The Home of MiDor. Personally, I’d love to see the audio play released under a Creative Commons license. James’ work has been published as Rejoice Burning by Aurora Metro Press in New South African Plays.

Thanks so much to Marie for the heads up on these, too many to list here, scripts and transcripts from the Golden Age of Radio. There is the ‘manly espionage thriller’ David Harding, Counterspy, a handful of Sci Fi dramas like The Planet Man and Tales of Tomorrow as well as more recognizable series like Little Orphan Annie, Mark Trail and Escape. It is folks like Generic Radio Workshop and Early Radio that makes this stuff available to you, the reader.

So, skip on over to the Radio Scripts and transcripts page and do some reading. – Don

Time to get reading. The scripts for the One Week Challenge in which writers were asked to write a thriller in a week on the topic of this boat. The entries are in. Check out the scripts and talk about ’em on the discussion board.

This month’s One Week Challenge is sponsored by:

iScript.com – They turn scripts into mp3s! You upload a script – they record it using professional readers and picky sound editors – you download your iScript! Burn CDs, listen on your iPod, submit it to execs, producers, agents. Now people can hear your script while driving, jogging or relaxing.

This Saturday, July 28th, the genre and theme for the one week challenge will be announced. For those of you unfamiliar with the One Week Challenge, it’s an ‘unofficial contest’ to see how well you work under pressure. Imagine of a director came up to you and asked you to write a short script based upon an idea that he/she has and you have one week to write it. Could you do it? Come around Saturday to find out the genre and theme and see if you are up to it.

The rules for the challenge are:

It is Free! to enter

You have one week to write a fifteen page (or less) script based on the genre & theme announced.

The script MUST be in a generally accepted screenplay format.

Do not put your name on the script. For the first week or so, the scripts will not have the writers’ name on it so no one can pick favorites.

No betting!

Submit the script to the OWE Submission Page (note, the page isn’t live, yet)

The Schedule:

Genre and Theme announcement – 7/28
Submission due – 8/4 at midnight in your timezone (in other words, when I wake up Sunday morning it needs to be in my inbox)
Submissions posted to the site – starting 8/5 through 8/11 without names.

One script will be selected by some as yet to be determined criteria (either I pick, I get a screenwriter to pick or some kind of voting) and it will be recorded (assuming the writer gives permission to have his work recorded and posted to the site for a month) on MP3 by the fine folks at iScript.com.

The One Week Challenge is being sponsored by iScript.com – Lets You “Hear Your Script”

Scripts into mp3s! You upload a script – they record it using professional readers and picky sound editors – you download your iScript! Burn CDs, listen on your iPod, submit it to execs, producers, agents. Now people can hear your script while driving, jogging or relaxing. Click here to learn more!

Episode Six of Silent Universe, a draft of the script can be read on the Radio Scripts page, is now available in 64kbps stereo – go now and listen The Wheel Never Stops – Episode 6 of the Silent
Universe

Thanks to JBM and nazardo for the heads up on these courtesy of “not me” and Daily script. Motor over to the movie scripts page to read the March, 2006 draft of Christopher Landon’s Disturbia (a hipper version of “Rear Window”) and Gary Goldman’s Next (based on ‘The Golden Man’ by Philip K. Dick).

Apologies to all you screenwriters on the ‘net who have submitted scripts this month. I’m behind on getting them up. I hope to catch up this weekend (pray for rain, otherwise I’ll be out mucking about in the garden).

You all know that, in addition to reading scripts, I’m a big fan of short speculative fiction. I’ve mentioned Escape Pod which podcasts science fiction and fantsy short fiction (btw, Escape Pod is broadcasting, for the next month or so, all the 2007 Hugo nominated short stories) and Variant Frequencies which podcats science fiction, fantasy, horror and ‘odd bands in between’.
To round out the trifeca, check out Well Told Tales which podcasts science fiction, horror and hard boiled short fiction. (listen to Hand of God wherein a young scientist, determined to win the affection and respect of her distant father, breaks the space-time continuum to fix the worst blown call in sports history.) – Don

Hi, here in Virginia in the good ole’ U. S. and A, we have snow and ice and cold weather. On the Unproduced Scripts page we have thirty seven original scripts up for your reading pleasure. (Well, actually, I put them up about 3 days ago, but failed to let anyone know that there was more reading fodder). I’ve been traveling and arrived back to a couple of thousand e-mails (80% of which was spam). I’m still wading through and trying to get an update up and out. I’ve got sitting in my inbox some great stuff (well, in my opinion)

Whilst traveling I listened to quite a few audio books from Podiobooks.com (free registration and you don’t need an iPod to listen tot he stories). Let me recommend Lester del Ray’s Badge of Infamy – Daniel Feldman was a doctor once. He made the mistake of saving a friend’s life in violation of Medical Lobby rules. Now, he’s a pariah, shunned by all, forbidden to touch another patient. But things are more loose on Mars. There, Doc Feldman is welcomed by the colonists, even as he’s hunted by the authorities. But, when he discovers a Martian plague may soon wipe out humanity on two planets, the authorities begin hunting him for a different reason altogether.

I also recommend Matt Wallace’s The Failed Cities Monologues which tells the story of a hardboiled dystopian future of an American city divided in two – rich on one side and poor on the other. This is a very meaty, noir story told from different perspectives.

– Don

Thanks to Dennis and Weekly Script we can read this shooting draft of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Thanks to JBM and Daily Script read the oft requested The Departed. Those would be on the Movie Scripts page.

On the Unproduced Scripts page there are five new or revised scripts up for your reading pleasure.

Lastly, check out The Purifying Flames Of Burning Love by Jared Axelrod. This is the 50th podcasted short from 365 Tomorrows which provides one piece of short fiction every day and a podcast of short fiction every week. – Don

On the unproduced scripts page there are seventeen scripts up for your reading pleasure.

On the Radio Scripts page read the forth installment of Silent Universe. – Don