The Writers Guild Foundation is hosting a daylong seminar July 31 on the realities of writing scripted television in the current market.

"What You Need to Know About Your Career in Television Writing" will include panelists Chris Brancato ("Terra Nova"), Glenn Gordon Caron ("Moonlighting"), Jeff Greenstein ("Desperate Housewives"), David Greenwalt ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), Allan Heinberg ("Gray’s Anatomy"), Winnie Holzman ("My So Called Life"), Jay Kogen ("The Simpsons"), Robb Rothman (agent), Michael Cinquemani ("Brothers and Sisters"), Lauren Gussis ("Dexter"), Shireen Razack ("Trauma"), Savannah Dooley ("Huge") and Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas ("Dollhouse").

The event will be held at the WGA headquarters.

 

The "Eclipse" machine rolls on toward its June 30 opening. But at least screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg is being included in all the promotional hoopla. The Writers Guild Foundation is hosting Rosenberg at the WGAw headquarters July 6 now July 13 at 7:30 pm to discuss her career and work on the blockbuster franchise. L.A. Times writer Gina Piccalo is handling the interview duties. (I got my turn last week.) And for the first time, the guild will stream the interview live online, which also allows viewers to submit questions via Twitter.

Upcoming Writers Guild Foundation events in the Writers on Genre series, which runs Thursdays, July 1-29, 7:30-9:30 p.m. All events take place at the WGF/WGA headquarters, 7000 West Third Street. July 1 - Action Adventure/Thriller Mark Fergus ("Children of Men," "Iron Man"), Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard ("Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time") and Kurt Wimmer ("Law Abiding Citizen," "Salt") discuss the elements of writing successful grab-them-by-their-throat action-adventure movies and edge-of-the-seat thrillers. July 8 - Horror Scott Kosar ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Crazies"), Wesley Strick ("Arachnophobia," "Wolf," "A Nightmare on Elm Street") and Stephen Susco ("The Grudge," "Red") tell how to write a Really Scary Movie. July 15 - Drama and True Stories Andrea Berloff ("World Trade Center"), Adam Mazer ("Breach," "You Don’t Know Jack") and Scott Frank ("Out of Sight," "The Lookout") discuss writing a successful, Oscar-bait dramatic screenplay. July 22 - Sci-fi and Fantasy Gavin Scott ("The Borrowers," "Mists of Avalon"), Nicholas Meyer ("The Seven Percent Solution", "Star Trek II," "IV," "VI") and one more TBA speaker divulge the secrets of penning imagined worlds for the screen. July 29 - Comedy and Romantic Comedy The Duplass Brothers ("Cyrus"), Katherine Fugate ("Valentine’s Day"), Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel ("City Slickers," "Fever Pitch") and Nicholas Stoller ("Fun With Dick and Jane," "Get Him to the Greek") explain the difficult task of writing scripts that make people laugh.

The Writers Guild Foundation has collected a killer list for its upcoming annual one-day craft seminar "For Love or Money: The Passion Project." Scheduled for Saturday, June 26, the workshop will include screenwriters Callie Khouri ("Thelma and Louise"), Tom Schulman ("Dead Poets Society"), Robert Nelson Jacobs ("Chocolat"), Dan Petrie Jr. ("Beverly Hills Cop"), Shane Black ("Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"), Scott Z. Burns ("The Informant!"), Ted Elliott ("Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"), Jack Epps Jr. ("Top Gun"), Jim Kouf ("Rush Hour"), Howard Rodman ("Savage Grace"), Robin Swicord ("Little Women") and James Vanderbilt ("Zodiac"), plus producer Albert Berger ("Little Miss Sunshine") and agents David Saunders (APA) and Hal Sadoff (ICM). The assembled industry talent will instruct participants in the perennial struggle of "holding onto one’s passion while making a living as a writer in Hollywood." The seminar will be held at the WGF/WGA headquarters at 3rd and Fairfax from 9 am to 6 pm.

News for a slow morning: The Writers Guild of America, East, has officially changed its logo. Granted, the old one looks a bit like a title card from a "Sesame Street" montage: But the new one is... what?

Here are a couple of new Writers Guild Foundation events that may spark your interest. Writer-director John Lee Hancock will be on-hand at the WGA offices April 22 at 7:30 pm, where he'll presumably explain how he turned Michael Lewis's nonfiction book into the Oscar and box office juggernaut that was "The Blind Side." There's a lesson in there about the shrewd art of adaptation, but I can't quite put my finger on it... (Insight into the personal life of star Sandra Bullock not guaranteed.) On May 27, the WGF/WGA and Humanitas will host a panel called "The New Family Comedies." Steve Levitan ("Modern Family"); De Ann Heline and Eileen Heisler ("The Middle"); Bill Lawrence ("Cougar Town"); and Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan ("Glee") are set to speak. L.A. Times reporter Mary McNamara will moderate. This may fall into the stating-the-obvious category, but this one should be pretty damn funny. I watched Lawrence emcee the Humanitas Awards ceremony last year, and he's a ridiculously funny presence. He also writes, uh, "Cougar Town." But don't hold it against him; his pilot script for "Scrubs" is fantastic. Plus, wine, cheese and dessert will be provided!

The Writers Guild Foundation will showcase a number of intriguing writers this month as part of its "Anatomy of a Script" series. And more than a few are women, for a change. March 3 - Vince Gilligan talks about his AMC series "Breaking Bad," but his resume also includes work on "The X-Files" and the feature "Hancock." A screening of the "Breaking Bad" pilot will begin at 6 p.m. March 10 - Callie Khouri talks about her Oscar-winning screenplay for "Thelma & Louise," with a screening of the Ridley Scott-directed drama beforehand at 5 p.m.

I've been wanting to get this up since Thursday night, when the Writers Guild held its annual star-studded Beyond Words panel, but too many events piled up. The WGA's awards-season closer turned out to be a bizarre laugh-riot that managed to skirt almost completely any discussion of the craft of writing. In attendance were James Cameron ("Avatar"), Jon Lucas & Scott Moore ("The Hangover"), Scott Neustadter ("(500) Days of Summer"), Mark Boal ("The Hurt Locker"), Alex Kurtzman ("Star Trek"), Geoffrey Fletcher ("Precious"), Scott Cooper ("Crazy Heart") and Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner ("Up in the Air"). Missing were Nora Ephron ("Julie & Julia"), Roberto Orci ("Star Trek"), Michael H. Weber ("(500) Days of Summer") and Joel and Ethan Coen ("A Serious Man").

I was going to tell you about this amazing annual Writers Guild Foundation event, Beyond Words, taking place in two weeks. But it sold out today in an hour. That's probably because the panel, comprised of 2010 Oscar- and WGA Award-nominated screenwriters, is scheduled to include Scott Cooper ("Crazy Heart"), James Cameron ("Avatar"), Mark Boal ("The Hurt Locker"), Alex Kurtzman ("Star Trek"), Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner ("Up in the Air"), Geoffrey Fletcher ("Precious"), Scott Neustadter ("(500) Days of Summer") and Jon Lucas & Scott Moore ("The Hangover"). Additionally, the WGA got little-known screenwriter Judd Apatow ("Funny People") to moderate again this year. The event is at the Writers Guild Theater on Doheny February 18, but good luck getting in. The WGA says it may do a wait list at the door on the night of the event, but not to hold your breath. The guild does typically put the event on a DVD, so you can look for that instead. The next WGF event features writer-director-producer Barry Levinson, Feb. 22 at the Writers Guild Theater. Looks like you can still get into that one. Levinson, whose writing credits include "Silent Movie," "High Anxiety," "...And Justice for All," "Diner," "Avalon," "Sleepers" and "Liberty Heights," is receiving the WGA’s Screen Laurel Award this year. He also won an Oscar for directing "Rain Man."

For anyone still looking for a cool Thursday night activity, Humanitas is presenting a killer writers panel to benefit the Writers Guild Foundation tonight. Called "Writing in a Time of War," the event features recently Oscar-nominated screenwriters Mark Boal ("The Hurt Locker") and Alessandro Camon ("The Messenger"), as well as Kimberly Peirce ("Stop Loss") and Evan Wright ("Generation Kill"). My buddy John Horn from the L.A. Times is moderating. It starts at 6:45 pm at the WGA headquarters at 7000 West Third Street. And yes, there will be wine and cheese and dessert. If that's too hardcore for you, the WGF is sponsoring another event next Thursday, Feb. 11, on writing movie musicals. Leslie Dixon ("Hairspray"), Winnie Holzman ("Wicked"), Stephen Schwartz ("Wicked") and Irene Mecchi ("The Lion King") and Bill Kelly ("Enchanted") are all scheduled to appear.

If you're looking for more juicy background on "The Hurt Locker," screenwriter Mark Boal will be speaking at WGA headquarters next month as part of the Writers Guild Foundation's great "Writers on Writing" speaker series. The event is Wednesday, January 13 at 7:30 pm and non-WGA members can get in for $20. Film writer and critic F.X. Feeney is moderating, as usual. Boal has been a journalist for a dozen years. As most people know by now, the germ for "Locker" came from an assignment he took on to embed with a bomb defusal unit in Baghdad. The limits of the single article provoked him to expand his experiences into the screenplay for "Locker." His script has since been recognized by several critics groups as one of the best of the year, and it received a Golden Globe nomination Tuesday. Boal's reporting also provided the basis for Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah," an unjustly overlooked film that takes a Stateside angle on the effects that surviving danger and death in the field have on soldiers. The WGF event seems like a great opportunity to ask Boal about his research methods and how to write films invested with real-world experience and real-world resonance. Boal also took on a producing role with "Locker" and maintained an unusual amount of control over the independent project. Here's a short video interview with Boal from THR's recent round table in which he discusses the opening scene of "Locker" and what he was trying to achieve.