I am Joint Managing Director of Blake Friedmann Literary Agency in London which represents over 200 book and script writers worldwide. Prior to BFLA I ran a small agency for several years before merging with Carole Blake who had a similar small agency.

For a number of years before that I ran a small publishing company specialising in academic books, and before that I was Educational Editor at two companies in London in the 1970s, Angus & Robertson and Irish University Press.

I was the first UK Coordinator of the European Union’s MEDIA Programme, EAVE, a producer-training programme (1990), where I was responsible for the pitching training and for introducing in-depth script analysis. I worked closely with the then Head of MEDIA, Holde Lhoest and spent time in Brussels on the Board of EAVE. I have been involved with other MEDIA Programmes including being an expert at Euro Aim workshops, and lecturing at SOURCES workshops around Europe.

I also helped design, and taught regularly at, Global Negotiations, a MEDIA Programme training people from all areas of the film and television industries – including writers – in the skills of negotiating in the audio-visual industries.

I have extensive contacts with the industries in Europe and South Africa and Hollywood. I designed and set up the world’s first MA in Television Scriptwriting at De Montfort University in Leicester where I taught regularly. I have taught for Screen Training Ireland and have been a visiting lecturer at the University of Brussels, the Munich Film School, the Masterschool Drehbuch, ScriptForum in Berlin, John Moore’s University in Liverpool, the London College of Printing MA in Scriptwriting, Oxford University Film Society, Movie Makers in Scotland, the Royal College of Art, the National Film & Television School, and the Northern School of Film and Television in Leeds.

I have advised broadcasters BRTN Belgium and YLE Finland on long-running series and Soaps, and acted as an expert for various international MediaXchange tours of producers to the UK. I have been on both the European Jury for the International EMMY nominations (twice) and the Jury for the Grierson Documentary Award (twice) and during the Berlin Film Festival I was a  lecturer and script expert at the Talent Campus.

I lecture on the business of scriptwriting, on writing treatments and on pitching, and have published a book called HOW TO MAKE MONEY SCRIPTWRITING. I edited two volumes called WRITING LONG-RUNNING TELEVISION SERIES. I am co-author of a new book The Insider’s Guide to Writing for Television.

In November 2001 I launched Britain’s only scriptwriting magazine, ScriptWriter. I ran the magazine ran for 9 years, and it became Europe’s most influential scriptwriting magazine (it became www.TwelvePoint.com, a web-based magazine and resource for writers and those who work with them). The magazine covered all aspects of knowledge for professional scriptwriters, from law and business to script development, genre, audiences and markets. The magazine received support from the UK Film Council. After 9 years we closed the magazine: we published 900 articles on every aspect of screenwriting and it began to become groundhog day!

I was on the Executive Council of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and on their Communications Committee and Television Committee for a number of years. However, I resigned to advise Amnesty International, helping strategise Amnesty’s relationship between the audiovisual media and their campaigns. I have also been on a Skillset Working Party deciding how to spend Skillset’s budget for scriptwriter training, and was on the Board of Directors of the Scriptwriters’ Festival in Cheltenham.

I was born in South Africa in 1944 and came to live in London in 1961. I have degrees from the University of York (Philosophy/Politics BAs) and an MA from the School of Oriental & African Studies. I did one year of a PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics but left because I had a full-time job in publishing that conflicted with a two-year PhD.