Sebastopol’s Pamela Gray writes award-winning movies like “A Walk on the Moon,” and “Music of the Heart” for stars like Viggo Mortensen, Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, and Beyonce’, but she became a screenwriter because she was looking for a table.

“I was a poet and self-taught playwright living in Oakland. I wanted a sturdy table to do my writing, so I looked in the want ads. There weren’t any tables for sale without matching chairs, but there was an ad which read: ‘Are You Funny?’ It was for a class at Fort Mason on writing sit-coms for Hollywood. I took it and discovered I was funny—and could write funny as well.”

Moving to Hollywood to get an MFA at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, she wrote a spec-script for the TV show “Wonder Years” which earned her a TV Academy summer internship with Michael Tiller, an Executive Producer for the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series. Tiller soon hired Pamela to write stories for several episodes and paired her with Jeri Taylor to write the screenplay for “Violations,” an episode featuring aliens probing into the memories of Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis), and Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden). Pamela says: “One of the reasons I enjoy writing for television is because you have months for the characters to develop.”

Around the same time, Pamela’s student script for a movie called “The Blouse Man” won the competitive Samuel Goldwyn Award and over eighty meetings with studios and producers soon followed. “What I didn’t know then is the big difference between people ‘oohing,’ and ‘aahing’ the script… and actually putting money on the table.” Years passed until Tony Goldwyn came along as producer and potential star and Pamela started doing rewrites. Then Tony took over as director, Dustin Hoffman came on as executive producer, and Pamela did more rewrites “making the male leads stronger,” she says. Finally, the movie was cast—Viggo Mortensen, Diane Lane, Liev Schreiber—and the actors wanted a few changes. “In the end,” Pamela says, “it took almost twenty rewrites to get the final script.” Renamed “A Walk on the Moon,” the film won the 1999 “Outstanding Indie Award” and an Independent Spirit Award—Best Actress nomination for Diane Lane.

In the seven years it took for “A Walk On the Moon” to reach theaters, Pamela kept writing. She did more TV work including two episodes of “Once and Again,” two Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movies (“Calm at Sunset” and “The Love Letter”), and a movie script based on the life of a substitute violin teacher in an East Harlem high school. “Music of the Heart” received critical acclaim and earned Meryl Streep an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Actress and Angela Bassett won an NAACP Image Award for her supporting role.

A decade ago, Pamela decided to fulfill what she calls her “Brooklyn girl’s dream of living in the country…I visited some friends in Sebastopol and they showed me some houses for sale…I fell for the relaxed, hippie-artist-type atmosphere, and the beauty of Sonoma County.”

Named one of Variety’s “Ten Top Screenwriters to Watch,” Pamela wrote the script for Hilary Swank’s new movie “Betty Anne Walters,” and is currently adapting the bestselling memoir, “Dewey,” The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World” with Meryl Streep set to star.

Pamela has learned some very valuable lessons during her twenty years of screenwriting, and I am proud to be able to host the premiere presentation of “Pamela Gray’s Screenwriting Secrets,” at 7:30 PM on Saturday, January 9^th as part of the Filmmakers Sampler series at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 6780 Depot Street. Clips from Pamela’s films will be shown to illustrate and elaborate each of her secrets. Writers (and Pamela’s fans) can get advance tickets for $10 by calling (707) 829-4797  ($15 at the door without reservations).