Larry Bambrick is back in Toronto after six sunny months in Los Angeles working on the new Hallmark series When Hope Calls. He is now developing a show for eOne and Counterfeit Pictures — and another Canadian-Irish co-production with Hoodwink Entertainment.

Alejandro Alvarez Cadilla’s short script Abyssal has made the finalist list for Best Short Script at the Pittsburgh Shorts Film Festival taking place in November and will be read by actors in front of an audience at the Southside Works Theatre. 

Mika Collins has recently returned from Cape Town, South Africa, where she wrote several episodes for Syfy’s new feminist space opera, Vagrant Queen, now in production. Her award-winning sci-fi web series, Deep Six, (co-created and co-produced with Davin Lengyel), about the first astronauts in deep space, just launched on YouTube. It’s now available after a successful festival run, winning Best Web Series at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, Hollyweb Festival, and the London Independent Film Festival.

From January to July, Kate Hewlett served as a writer and co-EP on the BBC/DHX Media (now WildBrain) co-pro, Malory Towers. Additionally, her two episodes of Corner Gas Animated aired on The Comedy Network over the summer.

Gemma Holdway is currently adapting the comic book series The Spire for BOOM! Studios and Blue Ice Pictures.

Edward Kay’s primetime drama, Get Happy, has been optioned by Diggstown producer, Circle Blue Entertainment. His preschool series, Let’s Roll, is in development with Boulevard Productions, one of the co-producers of the CBC series, Addison, for which Edward was showrunner.

Donald Martin has been commissioned to adapt the Nora Roberts novel Brazen Virtue into a movie for Netflix.  

Peter Meech’s debut novel Billy (the Kid) will be published in February 2020 by Sentient Publications.

Karen Moore’s directorial debut short film Volcano had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and will continue its festival run over the coming months before being broadcast nationally on CBC’s Canadian Reflections.

Greg Nelson is spending the year in Los Angeles as writer and co-executive producer of the new CBS/CTV series All Rise.

Jennifer Podemski and Derek Diorio (Hard Rock Medical) have created and are now writing a 10-ep half-hour drama series called Unsettled for TVO and APTN. Production begins in February in North Bay. 

Publisher Routledge has just published English and French versions of Isabelle Raynauld’s book, Reading and Writing a Screenplay: Fiction, Documentary and New Media.

Carolyn Saunders wrote several episodes of the web series Tokens, a comedy about last-minute diversity casting. The series is doing nicely on the festival circuit, winning Best Comedy Series at the Minnesota Webfest.

Corey Shurge is currently working in Los Angeles as writer and executive producer on the new scripted podcast series, Solve (iHeartRadio). His short film, Stuck (Prime Video), recently became a viral hit, garnering more than 300,000 views online. His new film Lughead will have its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival.

While exploring a script library recently, Jerome Simpson accidentally unearthed a long-forgotten Forbidden Transition. Now the monks sworn to protect this secret are hunting him with crossbows. In a desperate attempt to save his life, Jerome will publicly reveal the Forbidden Transition here: RHOMBUS-WIPE. Use at your own peril!

The German and world rights (excluding the U.S. and Canada) to Wiebke von Carolsfeld’s first novel Claremont, recently published in Canada, have been sold to publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch in Germany.

John Walker has optioned Linden MacIntyre’s recently released non-fiction book The Wake. With funding from the CMF Early Stage Development Program, he is planning to adapt it for the screen.