Loved Ones

A precocious 11-year old struggles to win the love of her alcoholic mother, but her quest is threatened when the sister she never knew existed returns home.

  • Vicki Speegle
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Number of Pages:
    88
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Amazon Studios

    FINALIST, Best Screenplay of the Year
  • Sundance Screenplay Lab

    FINALIST
  • Tangerine Entertainment Fellowship

    TOP 5
  • Screenplay Live, Rochester Film Festival

    WINNER
  • Bluecat Screenplay Competition

    TOP 5
  • Filmmatic Drama Screenplay Awards

    Quarter-Finalist
Writer Biography - Vicki Speegle

Vicki Speegle is a writer, film fanatic, and ice cream addict. She grew up the daughter of a gay pastor in Akron, Ohio, where her love of storytelling began after her mother took her into the office and Vicki became infatuated with the typewriter. Since then she's worked an odd mix of jobs to support her writing and filmmaking, including 4 years in the U.S. Navy tracking submarines, and a brief bout as the world's worst waitress. Vicki studied music at Akron University before making the move to New York University, where she earned her degree in Film & Television Production. During her studies at NYU she interned as assistant to the editor for Ken Burns' production of The West.

Vicki's feature script Loved Ones was in development at Amazon Studios and came oh so close to winning Best Screenplay of the Year there. Her work has placed in the finals of the Sundance Screenplay Lab, Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope.com (2nd place), Bluecat (top 5), and Slamdance. She recently produced and edited a documentary about her mother's struggle with faith in the wake of Alzheimer's, In the Night I Remember Your Name. The film features Academy Award winner Marcia Gay Harden and it was a finalist for the Screencraft Film Fund.

Vicki's credits include a teen comedy for Applause Films and some really rhythmic radio scripts for jazz great Wynton Marsalis. When she can't make enough as a writer to buy ice cream, she works as a web producer, and she recently helped Carnegie Hall launch their new site.

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Writer Statement

There was nothing very different about me when I was a kid. At least I didn’t think so. My favorite food was Captain Crunch. I fought with my younger brothers and dreamed about growing up fast so I could do what I wanted to do – even if I had no clue what that was. It wasn’t till I entered my teens that I realized my family was unusual. It wasn’t until a classmate pointed out that having a gay pastor for a mom was “odd” that the thought ever entered my head. My Mom was divorced after coming out, and she often had to work two jobs just to make ends meet, so she’d drop me off at our local Cineplex in Akron, Ohio and I’d spend all day there, sneaking into movie after movie. The movie theater became like a second home to me. I fell in love with the magic of storytelling. It made me long to grow up and tell my own stories for a living – to be a writer – but that was always something that seemed like a fantasy.

I got my first gig at 12 washing dishes in the local bar & grill, paid under the table. When I graduated high school I roamed around the states for years trying on different jobs to figure out who I was. Four years in the Navy tracking submarines, two years studying music, a short term as a file clerk in a police station, assistant to a very eccentric artist in New York City, and a brief bout as the world’s worst waitress. Through those years I wrote stories and screenplays about my experiences. About struggling to grow up. About all the strange, surprising people I met along the way. And then finally I got it – I AM a writer.

Growing up in an odd family helped me admire the oddness in myself. I want my stories to be unlike any you’ve ever seen. I want you to experience them and say, “Now that’s different.”