History
The union was founded in 1959 as the Screenwriters’ Guild, the successor to the Screenwriters’ Association dating back to 1938. During the 1960s it expanded to cover radio and book writers and adopted its present title in 1964. It sponsored the campaigns of the Writers’ Action Group to establish the Public Lending Right and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society which – starting from a single room in the Guild premises – has collected and distributed over £100 million in payments to writers for photocopying and overseas retransmission of broadcasts. For many years the Guild hosted the Writers’ Guild Annual Awards, which it plans to revive in November 2007. In 1997 the Guild merged with the Theatre Writers Union, and membership now stands at over 2,100. Presidents, Chairs and leading activists of the Guild have included: Lord (Ted) Willis, Jimmy Perry, Bryan Forbes, Denis Norden, Maureen Duffy, Alan Plater, Rosemary Anne Sisson, Wally K. Daly, Ian Curteis, J.C. Wilsher and David Nobbs. The current President (2007) is David Edgar, the noted playwright, TV and film writer (Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Pentecost, which won an Evening Standard award in 1994; The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs; Albert Speer, based on Gitta Sereny's biography of Hitler's architect; Playing With Fire; etc.)
Read more about this topic: Writers' Guild Of Great Britain
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