Les Edgerton's Blog

 Hi folks,

Just got some good news! My screenplay, THE DEATH OF TARPONS, was named a Finalist in the Script Matrix True Story Screenplay Competition.

Announcing the Finalists of the Scriptmatix True Story Contest!
Email from Scriptmatix Inc.: Announcing the Finalists of the Scriptmatix True Story Contest!
SI

We are thrilled to share with you the highly anticipated announcement of the finalists in the Scriptmatix True Story Contest! After receiving an impressive array of submissions and after a careful review process, our expert team has selected the standout screenplays that captured true stories with compelling authenticity. You are amongst them!

Finalist Announcement:
Check the results here


We want to take a moment to extend our heartfelt congratulations to you for placing as a finalist. Your passion, creativity, and dedication to the craft of screenwriting have truly inspired us, and we are grateful for your contributions.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates, as winners have yet to be announce and being that you're a finalist, you're in the running!

Winners will be announced next week.

Once again, congratulations for placing as a finalist and thank you for being a vital part of the Scriptmatix True Story Contest. We look forward to continuing to support and celebrate your work.

Development Coordinator
Gabriel



Scriptmatix True Story Results – August 4, 2023
We are thrilled to announce the results of the “Scriptmatix True Story Contest.” The response was overwhelming, with screenwriters from around the globe submitting their remarkable true story screenplays. The talent, creativity, and authenticity reflected in the submissions made the judging process both inspiring and challenging.

Without further ado, let’s unveil the results:

Finalist:
TITLE WRITER
Abstract Faces Dimitrios Aletras
Abuse of Power Rachel Cann
Bearing Witness Wiindsor Racine
Before the Boogie Down Floyd Fisher
BEYOND THE RAZOR WIRE Sandy Thorne
Box and Boxer Kevin C.
Cheap, Sexy, and Shocking! Janna Jones
Collaborator? morris G
Cruise of the Amberjack E. Lyn
GADHAFI: Mad Dog of the Desert Georges S.
Gorilla Gram Jack Bennet
Gringos Gladden Rangel
Integrated Offender Manjit Bhangoo
It’s Only Life J. Stephen
Jackie, Holly, Candy and Craig Craig Highberger
No Small Thing Tony Gonzalez
No. 1 Jai Ti Chang Brian Stoddart
One Mad Apple Tom Pratt
PRISONER OF HEAVEN Douglas Rappaport
Reunion Anhtuan Do
SEOUL ’88 Jennifer D’Angelo
THE DEATH OF TARPONS Les Edgerton
The Rockefeller Massacre Sven Damer
THE WAY THINGS TURN Timothy Williams
This Wonderful Life Sam Juergens
Those Who Wander David Neal


Wish me luck!

Blue skies,
Les

 Hi folks,

I was just notified the novel I'm currently working on was named a Finalist in the Killer Nashville Claymore Awards. This is a prestigious award and I'm stoked. But, I'm even more stoked that a student in my online novel-writing class--Les Edgerton's Bootcamp for Writers--is also a finalist for the novel she's finishing up in class. And... Cheryl Arko was a Finalist last year also, for another novel she wrote in class!

2023 Killer Nashville Claymore Award Finalists

Awarded to the Best First 50 Pagesof an Unpublished Manuscript at the time of entry into the competition.

Finalists are chosen from hundredsof submissions. As a benefit to Finalists, for entrants who are interested,Killer Nashville will make every effort to help Finalists secure an agentand/or publisher. Our goal is to see each and every Finalist manuscriptpublished.

Winners in each category and overallbest manuscripts will be announced at the 2023 Killer Nashville Awards Ceremony onSaturday, August 19, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. Finalists are heavilyencouraged to attend to meet with agents, editors, publishers, and fellowwriters.

2023Killer Nashville Claymore Award Finalists

BESTACTION ADVENTURE

 GregBaldwin / The Napoleon Document
Sharon Barnes / Shanghai Sunset
Nordean Baxter / Black Power
David Darling / Signs of Anubis
Les Edgerton / Francois Roberge – TheFixer
Dennis Meredith / The Czar Bomb
Richard Meredith / The Double Cross of Brigid
Ryan Pote / False Horizon
John Righten / The Englander
Patrick Weill / The Mazatlan Showdown

BEST SCI-FI / FANTASY

 Cheryl Arko / Touch of the Elegrian

 Arnie Benn / The Intrepid: Dawn Of The Interstellar Age

 Michele Brady Boom / A Nest at Four O'Clock

 Mary Butler / Death of a Druid

 Anthony Catalano / Once We Were Perfect

 Savannah Jackson / Scars of Fire

 JS Morrison / The Pieces of My Self

 Colleen Story / The Untold Story of King Midas

 Troy A. Thompson, M.D. / Crumble's End: Flame and Scar

 Kane Williams / Perils of the Past

 

Wish us both luck! And, if you get a chance to attend,please do—this is one of the premier writing conventions in the world!

 

Blue skies,

Les

 

Hi folks,

 

I’ve teamed up with fellow writerJack Holland and we’ve created a podcast on writing I hope you’ll tune into andgive a listen. It’s called “Les and Jack on Writing.” (Catchy title, eh?)

 

Here’s the setup: Jack is a studentin my online writing class, “Les Edgerton’s Bootcamp for Writers.” For the past29 years, Jack has worked as a screenwriter and playwright in L.A. Last year hedecided to write his first novel and joined my class. While possessing a vastknowledge in the film business, he found out quickly that writing fiction is amuch different enterprise. He moved to Ft. Wayne for two reasons. His lovelywife Kim is from here originally and contacted some health problems thatnecessitated leaving California and he had two options—his home in NYC andKim’s home in Ft. Wayne. The deciding factor, he told me was that he’d beenreading my craft book HOOKED for several years and discovered this was where Ilived so they decided to become Hoosiers so he could study directly with me andKim could be close to her own family. Very flattering! This week will be histhird session with the class and he’s come a long, long way!

 

We decided to come up with adifferent format for the podcast. What we’re doing is chatting as friend tofriend and as student to mentor and work each week on his novel. Already, Jackhas made several dramatic breakthroughs and his novel improves by leaps andbounds each week. We’re both very excited about the direction it’s taking. And,we both immediately saw the value our conversations could have for otherwriters, both those relatively newcomers to writing fiction as well as seasonedprofessionals. Also, because of Jack’s background in the movie and theatrebusiness, each week I learn a lot about how that business works and others willfind his insights both entertaining and valuable.

 

In short, we feel we’re creating aproduct that will prove valuable to both tyros and seasoned vets. We’ve alreadypicked up some listeners and subscribers whose names many of you willrecognize.

 

From time to time, we plan to havefolks from both the current class as well as former members joining in ourconversations. As more than three dozen past attendees have published theirnovels written in class—in several cases, multiple novels—you’ll be treated tosome downright talented folks.

 

It is with great expectations wewelcome you to tune in and also contribute in the comments each week. It willsometimes get raucous—our class is called a “bootcamp” for a reason. We simplytell it like it is and strive to always be honest and at times that hurtspeople’s feelings. Sorry… but not sorry. If a teacher isn’t honest inevaluating a writer’s work, it’s the cruelest thing he can do. We tell folks what’swrong but we also tell them why and how to fix it. There’s a lot of pure-dbullshit floating around out there… We aim to keep the smell down…

Hope we see you!

 

Places to hear Jack’s and mypodcast.

 

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/338-les-and-jack-on-writing-un-114254064/

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/843db388-51cd-4a2a-b1d0-de9efa0b094a/les-and-jack-on-writing---uncensored

 

https://lesandjack.podbean.com/

 

We’ve got about half a dozen shows out there and aimto post at least one new one per week.

Blue skies,

Les and Jack

 

Hi folks,

 

I’ve spent the last several days trying to write this and kept failing. I’m just too overcome with grief to say this, but I have to. Our precious son, Michael Bud Edgerton passed away unexpectedly Thursday morning with a massive heart attack. I’m a writer and I just don’t have the words at this time for more than this announcement. His beloved wife Victoria is struggling with the final arrangements and hopefully soon we can announce when and where the services will be for those who wish to attend. Both Mike’s mother and I are simply overcome with grief as is the love of Mike’s life, Vick. His beautiful son Lewis Bud is thankfully too young to know what’s going on and it breaks our hearts to know he’ll never have his dad to watch him grow up. Sorry, but I can’t write any more at this time.

 

Les Edgerton

 Hi folks,

They're opening this up to the public. Just send an email to the address below (dvwritersguild@gmail.org) and they'll send you the link. Hope to see some friends there!

 Hi folks,

I recently received a great email from a writer who's presently auditing my online novel-writing class and will join us as an active classmate in a few weeks when our next session begins. Here's what Ken had to say after watching us work for the past couple of months:

Hi Les,Thank you for the way you handle critiques in your bootcamp. I love that you’re blunt and direct, and don’t feel the need to give participants a handjob for work that misses the mark. I won’t change my tune when it’s my butt in the hot seat. Yep, honest criticism is painful at the time, but it’s a heckuva lot better than thinking you’ve written a literary masterpiece, then learning the brutal truth when nobody will publish it. Maybe I successfully publish, maybe I don’t. I’m convinced I’m in the right place to maximize my chances. And that’s worth the price of admission.Thank you, Les!Best,Ken Speegle
We'll be starting a new 10-week session in three weeks and it looks like we may have a couple of openings. If interested, shoot me an email at butchedgerton@comcast.net for more info.
Blue skies,Les


Some former students who successfully wrote and had their novels published from our class.



Teaching from home's da bomb!
Blue skies,Les

 Hi Folks,

Just received the second Italian review of  THE DEATH OF THE SILVER KING

REVIEWSLes Edgerton / An American history of violence and fishing

Les Edgerson, The Death of the Silver King , tr. Marco Piva, Elliott , pp. 224, 17.50 euros printed

The bildungsroman is a genre widely used in literature, starting from the

 end of the eighteenth century

 Term originally coined in Germany, Bildungsroman , the first text

 defined as such is Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre  , published in

 1797. Over time the genre has evolved, adapting to the various social

 and technological transformations of the short century and the first

 twenty years of the new millennium by changing the settings and 

psychologies of the characters. There are many masterpieces of this

 literary genre, the first two that come to mind are Salinger's Young 

Holden and Someday this pain will be useful to you, by Cameron, and 

this novel too, while not reaching such high peaks, is an excellent example of it.

ROBERT STURMPULP - books dailyPULP - books dailyREVIEWSLes Edgerton / An American history of violence and fishingLes Edgerson, The Death of the Silver King , tr. Marco Piva, Elliott , pp. 224, 17.50 euros printedROBERT STURMDECEMBER 27, 2022











Corey John returns to the town where he grew up thirty years after leaving it, in 1955. His family (only his sister is still alive) emigrates to Texas from Indiana where his maternal grandparents live. The father, Robert, begins working for the grandmother, Lucille, who runs a restaurant bar and various other businesses. He almost immediately regrets having moved - Lucille's promise to make him a partner is rejected -, the dream of becoming an airline pilot turns into an obsession and suddenly becomes violent with Corey, giving improbable excuses to punish him violently. Her mother is incapable of reacting and she seeks solace in religion by reading the Bible and attending a community of fanatical believers: she distances herself from her husband and withdraws more and more into herself. The teenager has a friend, Destin, with whom he shares the experience of domestic violence and spends much of his time dreaming of fishing trips with his father, an occasion that for one reason or another almost never materialises. The boy's lifeline is his grandfather, Toast, who introduced him to reading. “It was he who gave me my first book by Mark Twain, and with it also novels by Dos Passos, by Steinbeck, even by Kafka and Camus. […] I was probably the only fourteen-year-old in town who read Céline, and only because I was lucky enough to have a grandfather who was passionate about literature”. “It was he who gave me my first book by Mark Twain, and with it also novels by Dos Passos, by Steinbeck, even by Kafka and Camus. […] I was probably the only fourteen-year-old in town who read Céline, and only because I was lucky enough to have a grandfather who was passionate about literature”. “It was he who gave me my first book by Mark Twain, and with it also novels by Dos Passos, by Steinbeck, even by Kafka and Camus. […] I was probably the only fourteen-year-old in town who read Céline, and only because I was lucky enough to have a grandfather who was passionate about literature”.But Corey's real goal is to be well liked and loved by his father, who always accuses him of only knowing how to read, a passion that will prevent him from finding a real job and extricating himself in life and for this reason he decides to secretly build a boat to give him. on your birthday: study all the techniques, raise money by collecting glass bottles throughout the city and mowing the gardens of the houses. But things in life don't always go as they should or as we hope, and the mother's fall into severe depression, her grandfather's illness, yet another misunderstanding with her father and a murder, bring down the castles in the air she was chasing. . The Death of the Silver King –proof of debut of Les Edgerton -, originally published in America in 1996, is a novel narrated with a smooth and dry style (apart from perhaps a couple of passages), capable of entering in a precise and profound way into the psychology of all the characters . Period, the one in which the story unfolds, in which domestic violence was considered an evil to bear, in which society still lived in the most sinister racism, in which the balance of power (as still today, to tell the truth) was dictated by the oppression of the weakest: unresolved problems but which, after long and terrible struggles, perhaps we have begun to partially mitigate. Corey makes peace with himself by returning to the places of his adolescence and untying the knot of his last fishing trip with his grandfather in the beautiful and teeming Gulf of Texas: episode that he had hidden in his mind for thirty years but which resurfaces forcefully. And his life, in spite of everything, seems a little more acceptable.Les EdgertonAmerican fiction

Hi Folks,

Great first review!

https://contornidinoir.it/2022/12/les-edgerton-la-morte-del-re-dargento/

 Hi folks,

Mauro Falciani, my bookstore owner friend in Italy, who is responsible for getting my novels in front of Italian publishers, talked to me about the first cover publisher Elliot had come up with for their forthcoming version of THE DEATH OF TARPONS (retitled THE DEATH OF THE SILVER KING), and how he thought a better version might be had, and I agreed and talked to my editor, Loretta Santini, who is the epitome of graciousness (my wish for all writers is that they get an editor as great as she is!) and she asked me for suggestions. To my delight, she vastly exceeded my expectations and their cover artist came up with what you see below. My first reaction was: It pops! and my second was: I love it! Mauro emailed me and said: Now, THIS is a cover! 

We're all just tickled pink! Easily one of the two or three best covers I've ever been privileged to have. I rank it up there with the covers for MONDAY'S MEAL, THE RAPIST, and THE BITCH.

Whaddya think?

Comes out at the end of October.

The English language version is from Betimes Books, Dublin, and available on Amazon.

I can't begin to tell you how great it is to have super publishers!

Blue skies,

Les