Since 2008, my husband and I have been taking writers to Italy with amazingly accomplished instructors to get away from our daily distractions and focus on some serious writing. It went so well that first year that we realized we could make a business out of it. We set up yearly retreats in a family friend’s Tuscan villa – Villa Michelangelo – and called ourselves Michelangelo Screenwriting in tribute to that bucolic setting. As a kid who dreamed of living an Italian ex-pat life but loves California too much to leave, it was the perfect solution.

Over the years, we expanded and outgrew our beloved villa. We moved to a convent in the spectacular hill town of Orvieto. Then, for 2015, we launched domestic offerings. Recognizing that not everyone can afford to jaunt to Italy for two weeks, we thought giving bite-sized pieces of our larger workshop in convenient LA settings was the next thing to do.

With each step further from the villa, the name Michelangelo Screenwriting made less and less sense. To those who didn’t know our origin story, it sounded pretentious and overreaching even though it was not meant as a reference to the Renaissance artist. Or ninja turtle. Also, it was also a mouthful.

After much deliberation we’re proud to launch PageCraft offering screenwriting retreats, workshops, and script consultations. One of the unexpected joys of all this is the community of writers we’ve slowly grown. Now that we can reach Angelinos at home, I’m looking forward to growing our community even more… starting with a Break Your Story weekend this January in Malibu.