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Before it found its home online, OnWriting had a life as a print publication…

Long ago, in a distant universe called the 1990s, the Writers Guild East offices were on West 57th Street (in the same building as “60 Minutes”) and the Internet was just beginning to truly flourish.

For the most part, we still typed our scripts on paper and faxed, messengered or had them delivered by Federal Express. And the Guild had a committee on publications – print publications – led by a wonderful guy, writer and producer Marc Siegel.

One day, sitting around the Guild conference room, the committee—including Marc and my dear funny friend, the late SNL writer and screenwriter Eliot Wald—kicked around ideas for a new WGAE journal. I remembered a magazine the American Film Institute used to intermittently publish called “Dialogue on Film.” In it, Hollywood professionals, including directors, actors and writers talked to one another. They discussed their careers and the art and craft of making movies.

We thought we could do something similar thing here in New York, with screenwriters talking to other screenwriters about their lives as storytellers—facilitated by an editor/interviewer. The Guild’s Marsha Seeman set the wheels in motion, and the logistics and interviewing were overseen by our able editor Arlene Hellerman.

The print editions were superseded over the years by an online version and its current incarnation as a podcast, but now you also can read those early print issues here on the WGAE website.

Enjoy – and stay tuned, as the Guild will have the rest of the print archives online in the near future!

— Michael Winship

Browse the Archive


 

Issue #18 – Aaron Sorkin

In This Edition

 

Issue #20 – Election Issue

Featuring… James Carville, Jack McDonald, Calvin Trillin, Larry Gelbart, Belinda Haas, Allison Silverman, Alan Zweibel, Paula Pell, Jamal Joseph, Doug Wright, David O. Russell, Joe Cacaci, Andy Borowitz, Terry George

In This Edition

 

Issue #22 – Wes Anderson, David O. Russell, James Schamus, Tony Kushner

In This Edition

 

Issue #25 – Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman

In This Edition

 

Issue #27 – Marshall Brickman, Tom Stoppard

In This Edition

 

Issue #28 – Paul Auster, Mike Figgis, Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake

In This Edition

 

Issue #30 – Walter Bernstein, Jeremy Pikser, the Screenplay for THE FRONT

In This Edition

 

Issue #31 – Christopher Hampton, John Patrick Shanley, Patricia Marx, Theresa Rebeck

In This Edition

 

Issue #32 – Joey Mazzarino, Norman Stiles, Peter Hirsch, Susan Kim

In This Edition

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