“Are Aspiring Writers Being Lured With Promises Fade In Can’t Keep?”

Interesting investigative piece in The Wrap:

In the summer of 2007, Patrice Williams said she received a call from Audrey Kelly, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Fade In Magazine.

Williams had won first place in the magazine’s screenwriting competition, in the “Thriller” category, she was told. She would be receiving $750, script coverage by a WGA-affiliated writer, a subscription to Fade In and a Waterman pen.

And most important, Williams said she was promised her screenplay would be introduced and promoted to producers and agents and her win would be announced in an ad in Variety or the Hollywood Reporter.

But six months passed, and Williams had yet to receive her cash prize or see an ad in the trades. So she got in touch with Kelly.

“I contacted Audrey and said, ‘It would be really nice if you were able to send out the award money as promised,’” Williams recalled. “She took that as an attack, that I was demanding the money, writing, ‘You’ll get it when all of the other winners get it.’”

In July 2008, a full year after the original call, Williams got tired of waiting. She took Kelly to small claims court. They settled in November 2008, but while Williams finally got her money, she still hasn’t seen the promised ad.

Students ask me all the time about screenplay competitions. Apart from the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, unless you really need something like that to motivate you to write, I don’t recommend them. In part because some of them, like (apparently) the Fade In competition, are of spurious value. But the bigger thing is there is a much better screenplay competition that really pays off: It’s called Hollywood! Write a great script and win that sucker!

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