Held each May at the beautiful Delta King, a genuine 1860's riverboat and floating hotel located in historic Old Sacramento, the conference will educate new and experienced screenwriters on the state of the art today.
NOTE: In 2020, due to COVID-19, we held a single ONLINE symposium in July to be followed by more conference tracks upcoming. If we are STILL dealing with COVID by May of 2021 we'll do another online conference. In the wake of the pandemic, many conferences have canceled. We KNOW this is concerning for writers. These changes are NOT easy but we have COMMITTED to NOT CANCEL the conference. We always prefer to meet people physically but will do all necessary to ensure a conference CAN happen, even if it is online rather than in person.
Much More than JUST a writers Conference:
With our SPECIAL WRITER'S PASS (Just $75) you get a day-long writing summit, learning to screenwrite in an intimate setting from top pros, PLUS A LAVISH AWARDS CEREMONY and, should you desire, an ENTIRE 8-DAY FILM FEST! YES, that's right, this conference is part of a larger film festival that you are GREENLIT to attend (The Sacramento International Film Festival).
The Awards:
Think you are ready for recognition for your work? Get recognized in front of a jury including the Godfather of American Screenwriting, Lew Hunter. Lew leads a group to analyze screenplays in 3 categories:
1) FEATURE SCREENPLAY (DRAMATIC)
This category recognizes full-length screenplays (70-150 pages) that are NOT comedies. Almost any genre can fit in this category: Science Fiction, Thrillers, Horror, etc.
2) FEATURE SCREENPLAY (COMEDY)
This category recognizes full-length screenplays (70-150 pages) that are specifically comedies.
3) SHORT SCREENPLAY (COMEDY or DRAMATIC)
This category is for screenplays that are LESS than 30 pages. Any genre is welcome!
THE LEW HUNTER AWARD FOR SCREENWRITING EXCELLENCE:
In addition to individual category awards, we also recognize one screenwriter each year for being the outstanding Screenplay of the entire year. This is a jury award given regardless of which of the categories writers enter. The award is named for our patriarch, Dr Lew Hunter, Dean Emeritus of the UCLA screenwriting program and author of THE BOOK, Screenwriting 434. Lew has trained more Academy Award-winning writers than anyone on the planet.