Nicholl deadline is May 1

Every serious screenwriting student should enter the Nicholl Fellowship competition each year. The deadline is always May 1. This is the most important screenwriting competition in the country, and it also has the lowest entry fee. No scam here. If you make the first cut into the quarterfinals, producers and agents will know about it because the Academy, which sponsors this, publicizes the results at each cut. I've had students reach the quarterfinals, go home and have messages from agents on their voice mail. Of course, this also is the most competitive contest there is. But at $30, the entry fee is well worth the roll of the dice.

clipped from www.oscars.org The Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting program is an international competition open to screenwriters who have not earned more than $5,000 writing for film or television. Entry scripts must be the original work of a sole author or of exactly two collaborative authors. Entries must have been written originally in English. Adaptations and translated scripts are not eligible. Up to five $30,000 fellowships are awarded each year. Below you can sign in to the Nicholl Online Application Form where you can fill in and submit a 2007 Nicholl Fellowships application electronically via the internet. You will still need to submit a hardcopy of your script via regular mail but there are many advantages to submitting your application form online. If you'd rather complete your application form by hand we offer links to Adobe PDF and Microsoft Word versions of the application form. The postmark deadline for the 2007 competition is May 1, 2007.