“Stranger Things Than a Tree Eating a Bear” (c) Emma Topping
Just in time following the exertions of our Christmas Day cook-a-thon then eat-a-thon, I bring to you my final blog of 2017.
First and foremost, I hope that you have managed to find the time during this crazy period not only to catch up with friends and family, but also to find a quiet corner of calm to mind yourself.
My corner of calm dwells in the heart of our family homestead in Ireland: the living room. Uniquely resplendent in my Christmas pudding socks and Pikachu onesie gifts, here I sit with family in front of the fire on comfortingly familiar sofas. Cosy we may be, but we find ourselves involuntarily shivering at the ice and snow hitting the headlines on the “mainland” roads today. I am so grateful to remain in Ireland until next week when Bear and I will return to Brighton via Scotland and the Lakes following that very trail that I wrote about in my first blog here.
Appropriately entitled “Reset” that blog featured the following quote by Beatrix Potter: “There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never know where they’ll take you.”
2017 has been a watershed year personally, politically and in the industry.
This year I expanded Emma Topping Entertainment to include not only specialist industry business affairs advice and support, but also a new film agency and I am privileged to have taken on two fantastic authors: Dr Ahron Bregman and S G Parker.
Just before Christmas Dr Bregman’s “The Spy Who Fell to Earth” was optioned for a feature documentary and we look forward to working with Salon Pictures in 2018. The time is right for “The Spy…” and I will be exploring new opportunities for this fantastic story next year on both sides of the pond following up on interest received in the context of dramatisations across feature, series and stage.
S G Parker’s gritty crime thriller series opens with “The Sky is Crying”: a serial killer case introducing English Detective Superintendent Ray Paterson and Detective Sergeant Johnny Clocks. His sequel “Voodoo Child” evolves the relationship between these two central characters as they find themselves facing another gruesome case. All rights are available for this series and I will be taking it to market in 2018.
I look forward to continuing existing discussions and seeking out new opportunities with authors (published, self-published or yet to be published) in the New Year. Be it a concept, manuscript, screenplay or publication, why not get in touch? I’d be delighted to hear from you.
2017 has been a momentous year for the industry and particularly for the women – and men – in it. Much has been written about Weinstein, Spacey, #metoo and those aptly named “The Silence Breakers”, collectively Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2017. In fact, so much has been written about this subject and will and should continue to be written about it, that on this occasion and for this blog, I am not going to go down that rabbit hole here. Suffice it to say, given Time Magazine’s rightly controversial selection for Person of the Year 2016, as trailblazer Dinah Washington sang: “What a Difference a Year Makes”.
I wish you all a fulfilling, successful and collaborative 2018.