PENMANSHIP

ARGH!! Not another wanky article from a twentysomething who, a couple of months out of college, feels she deserves to have buckets of money and public adulation thrown at her (“Glory! Fame! Heartbreak!,” July 26).

Malina Sarah Saval’s satire and sarcasm can’t hide her sense of entitlement. With, literally, weeks of experience, struggle and toil under her belt, she quit her “paltry-paying internship at the New Yorker.” I’m sure all the working stiffs reading her story were reduced to tears to learn she has credit-card debt, student loans and an unfurnished apartment; it must be dreadful to lead such a uniquely crummy and arduous existence.

And what a great premise for her screenplay treatment: “A bittersweet comedy . . . about a group of rich kids in a Beverly Hills mental hospital.” Hilarious! Hey, I’ll bet it would be even more bittersweet if the setting was a Beverly Hills cancer ward.

Where’s the talk (or even mention) of love and dedication to her craft? Nowhere. Screenwriting is just an on-ramp to the fast lane of Fame and Fortune.

I do hope that Saval can eventually afford that couch. In the meantime, though, she might think about buying a welcome mat to the real world.

JIM TROMBELLA

Santa Barbara

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What Hollywood needs right now more than anything are people who have something genuine to say. Saval needs to find herself first and find her own inner voice or she’ll be spending the rest of her life running around in circles listening to other people’s voices who really have nothing to say, as does her article.

ANTHONY PRESTON

Los Angeles

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There’s a wonderful saying that never changes in Hollywood: Don’t burn bridges. Saval may have burned that midnight oil (don’t we all?), but she burned more than that. Since every studio executive reads this paper, well, she doesn’t have any more bridges left to walk across since she burned every one of them.

Good luck on your trip back to New York!

JILL BANDEMER

Sherman Oaks