Private Project

Portrait of a Mexicana Poet in Iowa City

This rom-com-with-zomb TV pilot starts from and develops the template of the three-season HBO series "Bored to Death" (with Ted Danson). In the Mexico/Iowa series, a young Mexicana poet wins a scholarship to the Writers Workshop in Iowa City. The year is 1963 and she meets Raymond Carver (actually in Iowa City then) when both are taking a class from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr (actually teaching there). The two young creative writing students fall for each other, but she is a cultural Catholic and he married. She is innocent and sweet, but not always. He is a rat, but not always. Serious examination of love, marriage, and infidelity. Zombies provide background satire of academe. Set half in Mexico City and half in Iowa. Target ages 20 - 35.

  • James Fitzmaurice
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Television Script
  • Genres:
    Rom Com
  • Number of Pages:
    25
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Rocky Mountain International Film Festival
    Silverthorne, Colorado
    November 1, 2019
    Award Winner
  • CKF International Festival
    London
    December 31, 2019
    Award Winner
  • Canadian Cinematography
    Toronto
    June 1, 2020
    Finalist for Best Screenplay
  • Rome Independent Prisma Awards
    Rome
    March 3, 2020
    Semi-Finalist
  • Iowa Motion Picture Awards
    Attumwa, Iowa
    March 4, 2020
    Selected
Writer Biography - James Fitzmaurice

James Fitzmaurice, Emeritus Professor of English at Northern Arizona University, Honorary Research Fellow in English at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. A dozen stage plays and screenplays including "Barack Obama Remembers a Young Poet" and "Margaret Cavendish, Virginia Woolf, and The Cypriot Goddess Natura" (latter performed in Nicosia at the CVAR Museum in April of 2017). Producer - "The Farce of the Fisherman," performed in Nicosia at the CVAR Museum in March of 2018. Took part in a table read and the pitch festival in Oaxaca, Oct 2019. Can get around in the Spanish language. Able to travel.

Pre-retirement activities: Post-doctoral Fellow, Yale University 1983; Guest Professor, University of Tuebingen, 1986; Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, 1996

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Writer Statement

I was there at Iowa as a graduate student in the 1960s, living in married student housing. Presently, I have good contacts with University of Iowa administrators, who would be happy to accommodate a film shoot. I also have friends in Mexico City who could help with that location. Resume at https://margaretcavendish.net/about/information-page-for-james-fitzmaurice/