This past 3 days, 29th till today the 31st, I have attended the 1st ever edition of the London Screenwriters' Festival at Regents' Park. (http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/)

Organised by Chris Jones (of "Guerrilla Film Makers' Handbook" fame) and David Chamberlain, it's a festival with every imaginable aspect of screenwriting in mind. It is interesting to see so many writers in the same place, because they are different with being a film festival - quieter, I think. 

I attended a bunch of sessions of which a few stand out and were of extreme help to me and my approach and practice of screenwriting (when I get around to it):

Kate Leys (http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/speakers/kate-leys) on Your Script: From Good To Great - My fellow blogger/friend Jack Ayers talks about the gist of the session in his first fest21 blog entry -  http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/earlytrain/london_screenwriters_festival

Linda Aronson's Non-Linear Story Workshop (http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/speakers/linda-aronson) - which Linda was not able to squeeze all the info she had into 1 hour of what would normally be a four day workshop, but it was engaging and interesting nonetheless. 

Her main point was that there are more formulas to a screenplay than the ones that regularly and incessantly preached (Hero's Journey, 3 Act Structure, etc) which you can read all about in her new amazing book, "The 21st Century Screenplay". 

And last, but not in any means least, Helen Jacey ( http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/speakers/helen-jacey) gave a taster of her longer seminar on Writing The Heroine's Story and just launched her first book, "The Woman In Story: Writing Memorable Female Characters". She talked about identifying the motivations for choosing a female character, understanding how the character and her story reflects the writer's values about gender and the exploration of gender roles and their relationship to character. Powerful and interesting stuff. 

An honourable mention goes to Jurgen Wolff's No Template, No Formula Screenwriting (http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/speakers/jurgen-wolff). He gaves us tips on how to brainstorm and visualization exercises to improve or unblock your script. It's a good idea to sign up to his newsletter, because he obviously knows what he's talking about. Also one of the best humoured lecturers we had!

Overall, as a first edition, with the amount of talent that attended, I can only say it was nothing but a great success and definitely an eye-opener. Everyone was approachable and interested. I cannot wait for next year!