It鈥檚 been a year since I won the . A biennial award set up by , and to celebrate writing talent working in Wales. I submitted the first draft of a new play I鈥檇 written called 鈥楶arallel Lines鈥�.
I won 拢10,000. And immediately gave up the part time job that had funded my writing habit for a number of years. The 拢10,000 bought me some time and winning the award bought me a small drop of self belief.
Winning the Wales Drama Award was not a golden ticket to a six part prime time drama series or a large scale National Theatre production. Nor do I believe it should be. I have always prided myself on being judged by my work and my work alone. There is no easy route to making a career as a writer. You have to work hard and write hard, with the same fire and enthusiasm for your 100th script as you had for your first. But what the award has done for me has been to present me with possibilities, opportunities and open doors.
I gained an agent. A good one. I have been invited to apply for 大象传媒 schemes, workshops and writing opportunities within the 大象传媒. With one of the workshops came an opportunity to pitch a film for the 大象传媒3 drama strand for iPlayer. About thirty writers were invited to the workshop where we met lots of interesting 大象传媒 people and had chats with inspiring writers Toby Whitehouse and Levi David Addai. We all wrote a one page pitch and eight of us were selected to go to script. Three of those scripts were then chosen to be made and fortunately mine was one of them. 鈥淭ag鈥� is filming as we speak.
And my play, 鈥楶arallel Lines鈥�?
It was important to me, that a play that had won the Wales Drama Award was produced and played in Wales and Welsh new writing company Dirty Protest felt the same. So, a year on from winning the inaugural Wales Drama Award, Parallel Lines premiers at on November 20th for a two week run.
It鈥檚 been a good year.
Katherine Chandler is a Welsh writer was the winner of the inaugural Follow Katherine on Twitter: