David Milch: “The Writer’s Voice” (5 Part Series)

Videos and transcripts from Milch’s legendary 2001 and 2007 WGA series.

In September 2010, I ran a week-long series featuring key excerpts from a memorable series of presentations in December 2001 by David Milch at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills. Then I stumbled upon this: An entire series available on YouTube called The Idea of the Writer by Milch from a second WGA presentation, this one from December 2007. Since Milch is both an amazing writer and thinker about writing, each day this week I will reprise my posts featuring transcript excerpts from Milch’s 2001 presentation and embed videos from his 2007 series.

Television credits (as creator)

• Beverly Hills Buntz (1987–1988) — co-creator, writer, producer of this Hill Street Blues spin-off
• Capital News (1990) — co-creator, writer, producer
• NYPD Blue (1993–2005) — co-creator, writer, executive producer
• Brooklyn South (1997–1998) — co-creator, executive producer
• Total Security (1997) — co-creator, writer
• Big Apple (2001) — creator, writer, executive producer
• Deadwood (2004–2006) — creator, writer, executive producer
• John from Cincinnati (2007) — co-creator, writer, executive producer
• Last of the Ninth (2009) — creator, writer, executive producer
• Luck (2010) — creator, writer, executive producer
• The Money (2014) — writer, executive producer

Awards and recognition

• 1993 Emmy Award, Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (Hill Street Blues)
• 1994 Edgar Award, Best Episode in a Television Series Teleplay (NYPD Blue, “4B or Not 4B”)
• 1995 Emmy Award, Best Drama Series (NYPD Blue)
• 1995 Edgar Award, Best Episode in a Television Series Teleplay (NYPD Blue, “Simone Says”) (shared with Steven Bochco and Walon Green)
• 2006 Austin Film Festival, Outstanding Television Writer Award recipient

Not to mention the 259 episodes of “N.Y.P.D. Blue” he’s credited with writing.

I did this post back in July that featured some great video of Milch sharing his thoughts about writing. At the time, I noted this:

What leaped to mind when I read the news about the new HBO series was a series of presentations Milch gave at the WGA Theater several years ago. They were covered and excerpted in the fine WGA journal “Written By” over the course of several months. I remember reading them, both fascinated and inspired by Milch’s ideas.

I contacted “Written By” and they have kindly offered to create electronic versions of the original hard copies, so I can excerpt them on GITS. Look forward to that sometime soon.

Here are links to each of the entries in this 5-part series:

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Read, watch, listen… learn.