Image: journeythroughwriting.com

There are awards shows for almost every avenue of the arts.  Musicians have awards ceremonies for their accomplishments in the music industry such as the Grammys, the AMAs (American Music Awards), the CMAs (Country Music Awards), the Billboard Awards, and even the MTV Video Music Awards.  Actors and actresses are deservingly acknowledged for their works in film, television (both daytime and primetime), and animated programs with awards shows such as the Golden Globes, the SAG awards (Screen Actors Guild), the Oscars, Emmy’s and the Daytime Emmy Awards.

However, I have noticed there are no award shows for writers.  True enough, writers get slight nods during the Oscars and other awards shows in specialized smaller segments, and that is wonderful.  It is a wonder, with all of the attention paid to the actors, actresses, and singers, that writers get acknowledged at all.  Why don’t writers have an awards show that is all their own?

Where is the big production for all of the hard work and effort that writers put into their craft?  Where is the red carpet and the getting all dolled up that is centered around writers?  Why is it that writers are restricted to these small segments of time for something that takes up so much of these writers’ lives?  What would these television shows, plays, and movies be without the people who write them?  Comedy shows still need writers to structure the jokes and the cue the laughable moments?  Even reality shows that are (supposedly) unscripted need the type of structure that writers provide.

There are so many different types of writers and it doesn’t seem like they are getting the acknowledgement and the adoration that they deserve.  One may think that because writers choose a craft that places them in the background that they perhaps prefer to stay that way.  Truth be told, writers don’t typically write for the high-profile notoriety.  However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve to be noticed.

The motion picture Lincoln, according to both critics and audiences, is a remarkable movie with amazing and realistic portrayals of both Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, directed by none other than one of today’s most talented movie directors, Steven Spielberg.  Yet there’s hardly any mention of the man behind the screenplay of this wonderful movie, Tony Kushner, who took approximately five years out of his life to write it; or the author of Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that inspired it.  This may very well be the best movie that Steven Spielberg has directed, and the best roles that Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field have played, but without Doris Kearns Goodwin and Tony Kushner this movie would not exist.

It was proven back in 2008 with the writers’ strike that the industry clearly needs its writers.  While there may have been a temporary reprieve for writers when the strike ended, it doesn’t seem that writers are appreciated any more now then they were then.  Where is the recognition for a craft that takes so much emotion, time, and effort?  Writers need a show that is all their own to honor all of the screenplay writers, playwrights, television writers (daytime and primetime), comedy show writers, animated series writers, talk show writers, songwriters, and even the writers who write the very awards shows that squeeze them out of their deserved acknowledgment.  Where is the statue that they can place on their mantle at home?  Where is their moment to shine?