Jon Ellison

 Yesterday, I came across an article in The Guardian. It seems that the publishing company known as Puffin Books is altering the language used in the many books by Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl is one of those authors whose works I grew up with . I was always intrigued by the themes he covered; the wide world from the children's points of view, the dangers they faced, and the fact that some of his stories had pure antagonists as the main focuses (such as  The Twits  and  The Enormous Crocodile ), class themes and his courage to include macabre elements in his material, regardless of the target audience. There were some of his books read to me when I was at primary school and I even had some of his books. Roald Dahl is one of the influences behind my writing. And after reading that particular article, it personally irks me that such a publishing company, even though they published Roald's novels, would "fix" the language within these products. Roald stayed true to his art no...

 Hello blog readers. So, here's a bit of news. I have submitted one of my feature film scripts to a couple of festivals. One is the Best Script Award festival which is based in London, England, and runs on a monthly basis. The other is the Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards festival. The film is a family adventure drama. Without giving too much away on what the film is about, I'll put it this way; it includes a working-class family, a TV game show, and sabotage. I first began developing the idea five years ago and also submitted the script as part of my dissertation. I guess I should talk about some of the family movies which influenced my writing. Not all of them have influenced just this one project of mine in particular, but are most likely to serve as influences for other projects as well. Some of the influences are very loose. I must warn readers that there may be spoilers. Also, this list is in no particular order. Films Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory ...