Disclosure: I’d never written a single word of science-fiction… By Carmen Radtke
11 November 2018 · 1 min read
Disclosure: I’d never written a single word of science-fiction. Read, sure, watched, hell yes, but writing? Then along came Singularity50, and while I loved the concept I had no intention to take part. More importantly, I also had no time. None. Zilch.
Which is why a few days before the deadline I woke up with an idea which by the end of the day found its way into the Singularity50 competition as “For the Love of Jenny”. Then I really really needed to return to my paid work and a novel edit, which is why 24 hours later I also entered “Safe House”. Only the deadline saved me from going Singularity-crazy.
Considering that my published novel are historical mysteries it took me by surprise how easily hooked I was.
I blame Singularity50 for my jumping at a friend’s suggestion I should join another Sci-Fi anthology project (The Anthropocene Chronicles, with two stories by me).
Both my Singularity50 entries got short-listed, and “Safe House” made the final cut. Because I never know when to stop I have a few Sci-fi scripts roughly outlined. Too bad I really have no time to write them. None. Zilch. Probably.
Carmen Radtke is a published novelist (The Case of the Missing Bride under her own name and A Matter of Love and Death as Caron Albright), a scriptwriter and woefully easily seduced by ideas in all kinds of genres.
Written by
Chris JonesPassionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
