Hi there! I’m Jess Loveland and I’ve recently joined the BBC Writersroom team in my new role as Head of New Writing. My responsibility is to oversee all our new writing talent initiatives and ensure that we create a truly vibrant, creative and inspiring home here at the BBC for new and emerging writers wherever they are based in the UK.
I’ve taken over the reins from the wonderful Anne Edyvean who transformed the BBC Writersroom in recent years, creating the local hubs across the four nations and facilitating so many brilliant opportunities for writers to gain their first paid writing opportunities and professional credits. So, big boots to fill (eeek!) but it’s an incredibly exciting time to join the department, our relationship with the BBC’s Drama Commissioning team is evolving and strengthening with the soon to be announced appointment of four new Assistant Commissioner roles to be based in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and Salford (keep an eye on the blog for more news on that). Once in post the new Assistant Commissioners will work across both the BBC Writersroom and Drama Commissioning teams to ensure that the two teams are as joined up as possible and identifying even more exciting opportunities for new writers to gain crucial professional writing experience.
Over the summer months the BBC Writersroom team have been hard at work reviewing our regular programmes of support and development for emerging writers and have made some changes to the way we plan to design, deliver and select participants for our core talent development programmes. I’m delighted to announce that our next major Open Call script submission window will run from Thursday 9 December 2021 until Thursday 13 January 2022. As you may have already seen on the website, Open Call is our new name for the annual script submission window that we formerly called Script Room.
Every year, via the Open Call, we throw open the doors of the BBC Writersroom for all new and emerging writers to share their work with us. We understand that at the start of your career it can be tough to get your work read by industry representatives, and we feel it’s very important that the team here at the BBC Writersroom maintain a means for writers across the whole of the country to engage directly with us.
Aside from the new name, one of the key changes we have made is that from now on we will be using our annual Open Call window to select not just our Drama Room participants but also our annual UK-wide Voices groups. In this way we will use the Open Call to identify up to 100 emerging writers who we will invite to join our programmes across the coming year.
More details on the Voices and Drama Room programmes can be found below.
In order to widen selection in this way we need to make a few small changes to the submissions process, so from now on, as well as the usual writing sample, we will also ask writers to supply a brief writing CV outlining their writing experience to date and we will be asking a handful of questions about your motivation for applying and interest in writing for television.
We hope that this small change will make our selection processes more transparent and further broaden the entry points to the BBC Writersroom. As ever, when we make a change, we will keep it under review so that we can continue to refine and improve our processes to better serve our brilliant community of writers. We are really keen to find out what you think about this change so do please feel free to add your comments below.
What are we looking for via Open Call?
At BBC Writersroom our primary focus is always the development of people, rather than projects. Whilst we do encourage and support the development of original ideas via our Voices and Drama Room programmes, we are not looking to identify projects to directly commission or produce through the annual Open Call.
When we read your work, we are looking out for the signs of a distinctive and compelling voice; characters that engage us, that make us laugh/cry/angry, that we can relate to via their complicated relationships with others. We are excited to find story worlds and perspectives we haven’t seen on screen before, or maybe a fresh and surprising look at a world we are familiar with. We want to see all parts of our diverse nation represented, we want to speak to the universal human experiences of love, family, death, heartbreak etc in the local and specific. We are looking for writers who have something urgent to say about who and where we are as a society now. But most of all we are looking for talented writers who love television, are engaged viewers themselves and are excited about the potential of the medium to speak to audiences across the UK.
We will be holding a webinar ahead of the submission window to share more details and give you an opportunity to hear from writers who have taken part in our Drama Room and Voices groups. We will also be running regular online drop-in sessions over Zoom during the Open Call so you can ask us any questions you have about the submission process. Keep an eye on the website for details on these sessions and detailed info on how to submit once the Open Call rolls around on 9 December.
In the meantime, get polishing those script samples, dip into our brilliant and extensive Script Library for inspiration and get watching some of the amazing drama hitting our screens over the autumn months, as if you needed an excuse!
The two main programmes of writer development support we will identify participants for via the Open Call are:
Voices UK-wide programme (6 x groups UK-wide)
Description:
Voices is a six-month professional development programme for emerging writers who have a strong creative track record in other creative fields (theatre, short film, comedy, spoken word etc) but are new to television writing.
The programme will offer an insight into how the industry works with expert masterclasses, craft sessions, roundtables and discussions providing participants with the core tools and knowledge to write for broadcast television. Writers will hear from industry guests such as professional screenwriters, producers, commissioners and agents, as well as connecting and developing professional relationships with writing peers amongst the group.
We will also help participants to define and develop a TV treatment as part of their time with us on Voices and we will select the strongest idea(s) to receive a dedicated amount of time working with a script editor to refine their treatment and lay the groundwork for an original spec script.
Size:
We will run six Voices groups annually across Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. Up to 12 writers per group (circa 70 - 80 across the whole of the UK) will be invited to take part in the six-month programme. The majority of the sessions will take place online via Zoom, however, we hope to bring individual groups together in-person at certain points in the year for networking and/or specific sessions.
Drama Room (1x UK-wide group)
Description:
Drama Room is a one-year writer development programme for emerging writers who demonstrate a distinctive, original voice and an understanding of the fundamentals of writing compelling stories for contemporary television audiences.
Participants will usually meet once a month (via a blend of in-person events and online) for an initial six months to receive targeted training and development including craft workshops with practical writing exercises, masterclasses, industry introductions and networking events, and writing briefs with the chance to pitch for select writing opportunities across the BBC. Following this stage, participants will receive the support of a professional Script Editor for a further 6 months to develop an original spec script.
The overall aim of Drama Room is to develop and prepare talented emerging writers for the television drama industry by equipping them with the core skills, industry knowledge and connections to set them on the right track to gain BBC broadcast commissions.
Size:
There are normally 15 - 20 writers on the Drama Room programme from across the whole of the UK.
Cost:
Our programmes are all free to attend for successful applicants and we will cover all reasonable travel and accommodation costs as necessary. Participants will also benefit from the ongoing support of the Writersroom team throughout the duration of the programme.
We are also in the process of establishing a new programme of writer development activity which will be aimed at those who are at the very beginning of their television writing journeys. The programme will see us partnering with arts organisations based in specific areas to bring taster sessions to aspiring writers and giving them the toolkit to transform their ideas into written work. More information on this programme will be announced shortly.
Find out more about the writers who have taken part in our development groups
