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Letters From Alex
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Kicking Down the Door, Part 4

Hey, this is part of a series on writers who kicked down a metaphorical door with their writing. Like Marie Curie with science and Little Richard with music.

Some years ago, I hired a Screenwriting teacher for Gotham who turned out to be great in the classroom and also one of the nicest people I’ve worked with. She had to leave for a while to help a film school friend write an animated Disney movie, Wreck-It Ralph.

She planned to return to teaching in NYC when the Hollywood gig was done—she really missed it—but then they got her co-writing and co-directing a new project, Frozen. She assured me she’d be back soon as she wrapped up her work on that movie.

Ha, ha.

Her name is Jennifer Lee, and she’s now the Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation. 

Disney had been kicking around ways to adapt the Hans Christian Andersen story The Snow Queen for decades, but the project didn’t come into its current form until Lee jumped on the sled. She freely adapted the Andersen story, and, more importantly, she redrew the paradigm for a Disney princess, while also becoming the first woman to direct an animated Disney feature.

Instead of the focus on romance, Frozen revolves around the relationship between two sisters (both princesses) with romance being only a side feature. The younger sister, Anna, craves romance, but discovers her true love is with her sister, Elsa. And Elsa, showing no interest in romance, is wrestling with her innate power to turn things to ice, which is massively destructive until she learns to embrace the power, to let go of the fear, which allows her to control her icy talent rather than allowing it to control her.

And control it she does, with super-cool deftness and style. Which includes a glamorous hair and wardrobe makeover in shimmery ice-like tones. And an ice castle to kill for.

The impact of Frozen was like an avalanche. It became the highest grossing animated film of all time, and since its release over a decade ago, you can’t go far without seeing little girls (and many boys) dressed in Elsa gowns and feeling a semblance of that Elsa power. 

I can’t think of any character before or since that has inspired that kind of confidence in kids on that profound a scale. My daughter was certainly an Elsa acolyte—she didn’t merely watch Frozen, she lived it—and now she’s moved on to another glamorous woman showering girls with empowerment: Taylor Swift.

And we might soon have a woman as president in the US.

Did Jennifer Lee have anything to do with that? Maybe so.

Alex Steele,

Gotham President

Letters From Kelly
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Collaborative Editing

A question my students regularly ask is, what do you do if a story is accepted, but you disagree with changes proposed by the editor?

What they’re often really asking is, “If I want my work published, my choices are either withdraw the story, or go along with all the edits, no matter what, right?”

No, writers. No. Most editors — and all of the good ones — want a collaborator. They don’t want divas — writers who believe their every word is precious and sacred. But neither do they want to work with people who swallow their thoughts, just to get the byline.

But don’t take my word for it.

Recently, I attended an “Evening With the Editors” hosted by Hippocampusmagazine, and all six editors on the panel agreed that they prefer to work with writers who are open to change, but who will speak up when an edit will hurt their work more than help it.

“As a writer, I’ve had editors introduce errors into my work, [so] I definitely encourage writers to push back, said DW McKinney, an editor of Shenandoah literary magazine.  “We  want to make sure the integrity of the piece is up to your standards.”

The integrity of the story is key, McKinney said, to deciding when to be open to change, and when to say no. As important as it is to defend your work, it’s just as important to listen to the editor trying to make it better.

“We are especially tender with our authors because we know when we make suggestions it might be difficult,” said Kristine Langley Mahler, director of the independent publisher Split/Lip Press. “So in our acceptance letter, we’ll say, ‘Would you be open to having a conversation about this?’ We don’t want to have an author under contract, and then…have the author go, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ ”

And then, a really interesting thing happened. Rae Pagliarulo, flash editor at Hippocampus, and Hattie Fletcher, editor at Short Reads, started talking about the back-and-forth they had when Fletcher accepted an essay by Pagliarulo.

After eight years of rejection, Pagliarulo was thrilled to find a home for her story. Still, she felt a bit rattled when she first read through Fletcher’s notes.

“A lot of the suggestions you made,” Pagliarulo said, “were stylistic choices I wasn’t married to, but I felt they set my work apart.”

“Flash hinges on really specific images, a word, a turn, and sometimes editing is about clarifying that turn, that image,” Fletcher said. “It’s gem polishing.”

“But then when I read through your edits, I realized what I wanted the piece to convey remained perfectly intact,” Pagliarulo said. “I realized there was not as much intentionality behind those choices as I had originally assumed.”

“You could have pushed back on some of those if you wanted,” Fletcher said. “These are works of the heart. A foundational principle for editing is finding and preserving that heart.”

Kelly Caldwell

Dean of Faculty

Letters From Alex
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The High of Theatre

If you’ve ever been involved in live theatre—in any capacity—you know there’s nothing more exhilarating. Or terrifying. Or humbling. Or ego-building. Or addicting.

When that opening arrives, come hell or high water, people are in that space, and the lights rise and…

I like the lyrics to the song “Welcome to the Theatre,” from the musical Applause (adaptation of the movie All About Eve, lyrics by Betty Comden/Adolph Green). Which begins:

Welcome to the theatre
To the magic
To the fun
Where painted trees and flowers grow
And laughter rings fortissimo
And treachery’s sweetly done.

I myself was hooked on theatre for a long while—acting, directing, writing—and though I moved on to other exciting vices, I still hear that siren song. When I see a show, I like to sit as close as possible so I feel like I’m in it.

I don’t see nearly as much theatre as I used to, but recently I had the good fortune to attend three shows in 11 days.

Alice By Heart 
In a quirky theatre in Chicago, in a black-box basement space. Low tech, low budget, but dynamite theatricality and performances. A teenage girl in London during WW2 re-enacts Alice in Wonderland to cope with the impending death of her best friend. Saw it with a childhood friend, with whom I used to see lots of shows, so felt like time traveling.

Once Upon a Mattress
A daffy musical version of The Princess and the Pea, on Broadway, starring Sutton Foster. High jinks of the highest order. Theatre gets even more thrilling when I see it through the eyes of my seven-year-old daughter who accompanied my wife and me. We were on the front row, and during the curtain call Sutton looked right at my kid and waved.

Stereophonic
All the rage on Broadway now, but I managed to snag a single ticket. Set in a recording studio in the 1970’s where a band is making an album. Like insects on the wall, we watch the collision of their talent and tension. Years back, I hired the playwright, David Adjmi, to teach for Gotham, which was prevented by his acceptance into a Julliard program. Glad he’s caught fire. 

By now I’m guessing you want to dive into some theatre yourself. Well, Gotham offers Playwriting classes. And we offer two other ways to get that crazy performance high: Stand-Up Comedy Writing and Songwriting.

Or just go see something.

Also, I am appearing in something like a show soon. At the upcoming Gotham Writers Children’s Book Conference (mostly on Zoom, September 28 & 29), I will be interviewing our featured guest Maureen Johnson.

Not too late to get tickets!

Alex Steele

Gotham President