The Adapted Story & True Story Screenplay Competition recognizes and showcases exceptional feature screenplays and television scripts in any genre that feature adapted stories or stories based on true events.

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2015 WINNERS

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COLD QUIET COUNTRY

by John Spare

Adapted from the book “Cold Quiet Country” by Clayton Lindemuth

Genre: Crime | Suspense | Drama

Logline: A young drifter accused of a vicious murder and kidnapping battles to stay one step ahead of the law during the worst blizzard in a century.

Writer Bio: After two decades in the film exhibition agency as a senior level executive, John Spare has turned his efforts to writing for the stage and screen. Having earned a merit scholarship at Pittsburgh’s prestigious Point Park University, John is currently enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program working toward his graduate degree in screenwriting.

The author of over eight screenplays, John has received recognition for several of his works including Cold Quiet Country, an adaptation of Clayton Lindemuth’s critically acclaimed novel as well as Condition of Return, which has placed in over a dozen screenwriting competitions winning Best Screenplay at the 2013 Naperville Independent Film Festival. John currently lives just outside Hagerstown, Maryland where he is employed as a Communication Specialist with a prestigious suburban Washington, D.C. agency.

Click here to listen to an interview with John

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HAYMAN HOUSE

by Jim Macak

Genre: Drama | True Story

Logline: A young female minister two years out of Idaho farm country is drafted to start a rehab program for prostitutes in Los Angeles County. The results — dramatic missteps, heartbreaking failures and an occasional glimmer of hope.

Writer Bio: Jim Macak is a graduate of the playwriting program at the Yale School of Drama and his plays have been seen at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, the Berkshire Theater Festival, the Caribbean-American Repertory Theater Company in New York and the Coast Playhouse in Los Angeles. He is also a graduate of the Disney Writing Program and wrote a produced comedy pilot for Disney and CBS while serving as an intern for David Milch. The pilot never made it on the air but he went on to write for three of David’s shows including NYPD Blue. Jim also wrote a number of freelance episodes for other dramas on CBS and ABC.

He served as a staff writer on the daytime drama General Hospital and the syndicated series Pensacola: Wings Of Gold. He also wrote several TV movies including Two Voices for Lifetime. Jim currently serves as an associate professor at Emerson College splitting his time between the college’s Boston and Los Angeles campuses. He teaches film and TV writing. This summer Jim shadowed James Duff, the creator and executive producer of Major Crimes, sitting in on the writer’s room and on post-production.

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THE KIDS FROM NOWHERE

by George Guthridge & Deborah Schildt

Adapted from the book “The Kids From Nowhere” by George Guthridge & Deborah Schildt

Genre: Family | Drama | True Story

Logline: Coached by a teacher who is becoming increasingly ill, six Eskimo whaling village students, previously labeled “unteachable,” must overcome staggering educational obstacles and wrenching emotional difficulties in their quest to become the only team of Native Americans ever to win national championships in academics.

Writer Bio: Dr. George Guthridge is an internationally honored novelist who twice has been the subject of international media acclaim for his successes teaching Alaska Native students. Despite having extremely low reading and writing scores and little world knowledge, and despite coming from a blizzard-swept Eskimo-island village school that had no computers and almost no books, under George’s tutelage they became the only team of Native Americans ever to win national championships in academics.

Since then, George co-developed one of the nation’s most successful college prep programs for Native Americans. Over 1200 of his rural Alaska Native students have graduated from college, including from such places as M.I.T., Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Notre Dame, Stanford, Annapolis, and West Point. He also was co-winner of the 1997 Bram Stoker Award for the Year’s Best Horror Novel, was runner-up for the Nebula Award for the Year’s Best Novelette (fantasy) and again for the Year’s Best Short Story (science fiction), and was a finalist for the Hugo Award in the short story category.

He and Deborah Schildt, who has forty years’ experience in the film industry, have won four international screenplay competitions for their adaptation of George’s nonfiction book, which itself was one of three national finalists for the Benjamin Franklin Award of the Year’s Best Book about Education. In May 2015, George retired as Professor Emeritus from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He currently is in Korea, teaching writing to U.S. soldiers.

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2015 OFFICIAL SELECTIONS

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