The industry speaks out about SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING
""Where was this book when I was starting out? A fantastic, fun, informative guide to breaking into?and more importantly, staying in?the TV writing game from the guys who taught me how to play it.""
--Terence Winter, Coexecutive Producer, The Sopranos
""Goldberg and Rabkin write not only with clarity and wit but also with the authority gleaned from their years of slogging through Hollywood's trenches. Here is a must-read for new writers and established practitioners whose imagination could use a booster shot.""
--Professor Richard Walter, Screenwriting Chairman, UCLA Department of Film and TV
""Not since William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade has there been a book this revealing, funny, and informative about The Industry. Reading this book is like having a good, long lunch with your two best friends in the TV business.""
--Janet Evanovich
""With sharp wit and painful honesty, Goldberg and Rabkin offer the truest account yet of working in the TV business. Accept no substitutes ""
--Jeffrey B. Hodes and Nastaran Dibai, Coexecutive Producers, Third Rock from the Sun
""Should be required reading for all aspiring television writers.""
--Howard Gordon, Executive Producer, 24 and The X-Files

The industry speaks out about SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING

"Where was this book when I was starting out? A fantastic, fun, informative guide to breaking into–and more importantly, staying in–the TV writing game from the guys who taught me how to play it."
–Terence Winter, Coexecutive Producer, The Sopranos

"Goldberg and Rabkin write not only with clarity and wit but also with the authority gleaned from their years of slogging through Hollywood’s trenches. Here is a must-read for new writers and established practitioners whose imagination could use a booster shot."
–Professor Richard Walter, Screenwriting Chairman, UCLA Department of Film and TV

"Not since William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade has there been a book this revealing, funny, and informative about The Industry. Reading this book is like having a good, long lunch with your two best friends in the TV business."
–Janet Evanovich

"With sharp wit and painful honesty, Goldberg and Rabkin offer the truest account yet of working in the TV business. Accept no substitutes!"
–Jeffrey B. Hodes and Nastaran Dibai, Coexecutive Producers, Third Rock from the Sun

"Should be required reading for all aspiring television writers."
–Howard Gordon, Executive Producer, 24 and The X-Files

Television networks are so desperate for new voices and fresh ideas that for the first time in history they're buying spec pilot scripts and turning them into series. Today's aspiring writer can be tomorrow's showrunner. But it's not easy. Conceiving and writing a pilot that can launch a series is a complex assignment even for a seasoned pro. This book will take you through the entire process, from your initial idea through the finished script. You'll learn how to identify a concept that can carry one hundred episodes or more; how to create characters who will stay interesting year after year; how to design the unique world those characters will live in; how to identify the essential elements that will set your series apart from everyone else's; and most importantly, how to capture it all in one 60-page script. Riverside-Palm Desert's low residency MFA program.

After dying in a freak accident, Matt Cahill inexplicably ?wakes up? three months later with the disturbing ability to see things?terrible things?that others cannot. Drafted as a warrior in the battle between good and evil, Matt will stop at nothing to destroy the malevolent Mr. Dark. In "The Dead Man Volume 7," a trio of sinister new stories tracks the reluctant hero on his nightmarish quest.

Matt Cahill is part of a team of smokejumpers who are dropped into the heart of a raging forest fire that is fueled by a flamethrower-wielding madman under the sway of Mr. Dark. Almost every living thing in this hellacious "Crucible of Fire," including Matt's fellow firefighters, are falling prey to Mr. Dark's evil touch and bowing to his furious command: "Kill the Dead Man "

Matt is tracking a blood-sucking, shape-shifting killer through the icy Cascade Mountains when he encounters a mysterious woman who is on the same corpse-strewn trail...but who has a terrifying secret of her own...and an unspeakable lust for "The Dark Need."

In the blasted hell of the Arizona desert, Matt hitches a ride with a young couple who meets a terrible fate that he's powerless to stop. The bloody encounter leads him to a deadly stranger who may know why Matt became part of "The Rising Dead." But first they must survive in an unforgiving wasteland to do battle with a gang of heavily-armed smugglers who trade in human flesh.

THE UNTOLD STORY... Aimee & David Thurlo's Ella Clah, a Navajo Police special investigator, is one of the most enduring and popular characters in detective fiction today. Ella's dedicated fans have long dreamed of the bestselling, critically acclaimed series coming to television...and it almost happened. In 2001, CBS commissioned a pilot script, a sample episode of a proposed series, from writer/producers Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin. Sadly, the Ella Clah pilot ultimately wasn't produced, and ever since, the script has been hotly sought-after by fans. Here, at long last, is that rare pilot script, along with the original sales treatment, six episode ideas, a foreword by the Thurlos, and a detailed account from Goldberg & Rabkin about how they approached their adaptation and what their plans were for the TV series. It's an exciting, must-read story for Ella Clah fans and aspiring TV screenwriters alike and a fascinating peek behind-the-scenes of network television. "One of the genre's most believable and empathetic protagonists," Booklist "A tough, appealing heroine who faces personal conflict between professional duty and pride in her heritage," Publishers Weekly