What the Nicholl Fellowships Have Meant . . .

It's been 18 years since the founding of the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Program, now regarded as the nation's most prestigious competition for aspiring screenwriters. During this period judges have sifted through over 68,000 screenplay entries to select a mere 84 fellows.

Writer-directors Allison Anders, Victoria Arch, Radha Bharadwaj, Jacob Estes, Raymond De Felitta, Anthony Jaswinski, Mark Lowenthal and Karen Moncrieff and writers Max Adams, Gabrielle Burton, Ronald Emmons, Scott Fifer, Myron Goble, Susannah Grant, Ehren Kruger, Andrew Marlowe, Randy McCormick, Jim McGlynn, Dawn O'Leary, Deborah Pryor, Mike Rich, T.C. Smith, Rebeca Sonnenshine and Warren Taylor are among the past winners of a Nicholl Fellowship.

Since the program's inception, just over $2.0 million in fellowships have been distributed to those 84 writers. The intent of the awards was to allow the fellows to concentrate on their writing for a year without having to worry (as much) about their financial situation.

To say the least, the Nicholl Fellowships also opened doors for the winning writers, giving them a brief window of acclaim that brought them to the attention of the Hollywood community. Often, that contact resulted in them signing with their first agents and in their meeting with countless producers and development executives. Some of those meetings may even have eventually resulted in an initial sale or writing opportunity.

In fact, the program has had an impact on the entire community of aspiring screenwriters. Novelists and playwrights as well as numerous other beginning writers decided to write their first scripts, in part at least, so that they could enter the Nicholl competition.

Novice screenwriters who reached the Nicholl quarterfinal and semifinal rounds have taken that validation as a sign that they should continue to write scripts. Several of those writers would later win Nicholl Fellowships themselves; others have gone on to start Hollywood careers without a fellowship.

As much good as the fellowship award has done for 84 new writers, the mere existence of the Nicholl Fellowships has encouraged writers to write, even when the dream of a Hollywood career was still far distant.

The following quotes, drawn from letters sent to the Nicholl Committee over the years by writers who did not receive fellowships, echo this point:

"It's been hard to drum up the-- I don't know, maybe arrogance to call myself a screenwriter. . . . the Nicholl Fellowships competition has helped me revitalize my will to fiercely defend this project that is secretly so important to me."

"It's a wonderful thing that the Foundation does for aspiring screenwriters. It not only gives us the opportunity to have our work read and evaluated by professionals in the industry, it treats us and our work with tender respect. It encourages us to keep believing that we can and will be successful."

"It's difficult to express to you how much the Nicholl Fellowship competition has done for me. One of my scripts . . . made the quarterfinals, and when I received your letter I shouted, cried and generally made a fool of myself. . . . All I know is this was the moment of acknowledgement I needed to keep going."

"[A production company has] bought my third screenplay . . . This wouldn't have happened for me -- certainly not as quickly -- if not for competitions like the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowships."

"Please relay my heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Nicholl for her support of new writers. The honor of being a semifinalist has increased my incentive to write more than ever. It also means that instead of banging on door to be read, doors are cordially opened by smiling faces."

"The Nicholl Competition is one of the few honest games in town, a chance to be read by people in the industry -- an industry famous for receiving enough screenplays in a week to fire up the furnaces of hell for a year."

"As a young writer with no contacts in the film industry, the competition got my script read -- something I couldn't have accomplished on my own. . . . thanks to your competition, I now have a script optioned and several people waiting for my next screenplay. . . . I hope your readers and judges realize what a wonderful service they're doing for tomorrow's writers."

"Being a quarterfinalist in the Nicholl Fellowships competition helped me in a number of ways. It gave me confidence in myself as a writer in an industry which seems to be always tearing writers down -- their work and their creativity. Even more importantly, doing well in the Nicholl Fellowships opened a lot of doors for me. It seemed to legitimze my work in many a producer's mind. Finally, my screenplays were getting read!"

". . . all I have to do is utter the word "Nicholl" and the agent or producer I am speaking to will generally take me very seriously."

"As a direct result of this year's competition, I have a new agent, am being read all over town (including Amblin and several other companies who never read); and I am re-focusing solely on the writing for awhile . . ."

"It is clear to me that the Academy Foundation and Nicholl Fellowship competition have but one goal . . . to encourage and foster high quality, creative screenwriting. The Nicholl competition offers aspiring screenwriters like myself great motivation of write our very best and to keep on writing."

"I am pleased to report that last week I signed my first deal. . . . I write not to boast but to thank you. I consider entering the Nicholl Fellowships competition to be one of the most important things that I ever did. At the time I first entered I had only been writing for a short while and had few signposts by which to gauge my potential. I truly believe that without it I would not be a writer today."