My People Will Chat With Your People

It still takes talent and connections for aspiring writers to make it in Hollywood, but real-time chat and the World Wide Web may soon make things easier.

Authors and screenwriters can log on to the Writer’s Workshop (https://members.aol.com/wrworkshop) and find themselves connected with seasoned professional writers, new-media publishers, development executives and agents who can answer questions and provide access to some of the industry’s key players.

The new workshop is the brainchild of Web master Ron Deutsch, 40, a former Hollywood story analyst, and Michael McCormack, 53, a television writer, who heard the complaints of students lost in big classrooms, either online or in traditional campus settings. Their solution: Connect aspiring writers with pros in small workshop forums via the Net.

Deutsch, who launches the pioneering workshop this month, brings a diverse background to the task. A former roadie for the Grateful Dead, he continues to serve as music coordinator for the annual Haight-Ashbury Street Fair in San Francisco. As a story analyst, his clients included Fries Entertainment, Showtime and director James Cameron. He is a former editor of the online search engine Excite and is creative director of the Internet Animation Festival.

The workshops will be led by industry professionals who serve as moderators of live dialogues with such Hollywood talents as the Golden Globe-winning writing team of Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander (“The People vs. Larry Flynt” and “Ed Wood”); the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of “Shine,” Jan Sardi; and television writers Lavina Dawson (“A Time to Triumph”) and Jill Isaacs (“Norma Jean and Marilyn”).

Other guests will include agents, attorneys, development executives, publishers and magazine editors.

“Our purpose is not to teach writing, but teaching how to succeed as writers,” says Deutsch. “This kind of workshop is effective in helping the struggling writer find both answers and a sense of community that is so vital for writers who often find themselves alone or without industry contacts.”

The mechanics of Deutsch’s cyber-workshop are relatively straightforward. Students will be given a user name and password, which will permit them to participate in a specified real-time chat event.

The $200 packages will include sessions on novel writing, screenwriting, television writing and new-media writing, and will run once a week for four weeks.

In addition to four general courses, Deutsch and McCormack plan a rotating group of “focus classes” on major writing genres (including crime, science fiction, comedy and romance) for all mediums (television, novels, interactive media, journalism, comic books and motion pictures).

“It’s the cyber-equivalent of hanging around the Farmer’s Market,” says author Christopher Vogler, director of development at Fox 2000. “Which is a great way to take advantage of the pool of experience and know-how of those in the industry.”