The guest on this week's 3rd and Fairfax podcast from the Writers Guild of America is TV writer Erica Messer who is the showrunner in charge of the series, Criminal Minds. She talks about that show and her career that began writing for Alias, as well as such series as Charmed (the original, not the current remake) and The O.C.
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On this week's episode of the 3rd and Fairfax podcast from the Writers Guild, the guest is Dan Futterman who talks about starting his career as an actor, and becoming a writer of the films, Capote and Foxcatcher, and also co-creating the Hulu series, The Looming Tower (about battles between the CIA and FBI before 9/11), as well as writing extensively for HBO's In Treatment.
It's been a while since I've posted one of my "The Writers Workbench" tech review columns, so tonight we'll jump right back in. This month it's pretty low-tech at the core -- light bulbs -- though in different incarnations that you might be used to. The first device is quite low-tech but very versatile and clever, the Luminoodle -- basically a cord with lights embedded in it, though there's more to it than that. The second is a Smart bulb for those who might be interested in controlling your light bulbs but don't yet want to wire your residence as a Smart Home. As always, since the column is written for the Writers Guild of America, and they've gone to the effort of formatting it all for their site, I'll provide the link to it there, rather than go through the headache of reformatting it all over again on these pages.  On this week's edition of 3rd & Fairfax, the podcast of the Writers Guild of America, the guest is writer and showrunner Jason Katims, who talks about his career as showrunner for such series as Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, Roswell and About a Boy, among others, as well as his new show, Rise, which he developed.
On this new 3rd & Fairfax podcast, the guest is writer Mike Schur who talks about the range of his impressive career that started with being put in charge of the "Weekend Update" segment of SNL with Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon, moving on to the writing staff for The Office for its first four seasons. From there, he co-created Parks and Recreation. And then co-creating Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Finally, he gets into his latest series that he created last season, The Good Place. As I wrote on this pages earlier here, I love the show and am a big fan of its charm, whimsy and inventiveness, and particularly its willingness to try "different." One "Spoiler Alert" -- if you're still catching up on the show, there is a discussion of the season finale. As you might imagine, it's a lively and fun interview -- as well as charming and even at times self-effacing.
It's time for another Writers Workbench column, though this month there's nothing high-techie about it. There really isn't anything techie about it, period. Because the column deals with products that are of interest to a writer, or sometimes someone in the entertainment industry, that takes into consideration things for a home office -- or what you might want to use as part of a freelance business. And that sometimes means lugging your office and work around with you. So, this month we look at an attache from (of all places) a very good tech company, as well as a piece of small luggage for a business trip. As always, because it's so convoluted to format the column, and because it's already been formatted on the Writers Guild of America website, for which it's originally written, I'll make it simpler all around and just link to it here.  It's time again for another edition of The Writers Workbench. And this month we have another column on, of all things...portable chargers. Amazing, yes, I know. (The last one though earlier in the year was on solar chargers only, so we're back to more standard ones -- though each with a difference.) I don't quite know why I like portable charging, but I find the technology so fascinating and often elegant and multi-functional. For instance this month, there's a portable charger that you can easily carry with you -- but it comes with cables that let you use the device to jump-start your car.  As always, it's a convoluted process to code the column, so rather than go through all that, I'm just going to link to the already-coded column on the Writers Guild of America website, which you can find here. It's also on the Huffington Post, but because the column is written initially for the WGA Online, this is the slightly-more comprehensive first, with more photos and TWW endnotes.
It's that time again for this month's The Writers Workbench tech review column. This time around, we look at small, portable speakers. (One of them especially-small -- the size of your thumb, with quite respectable sound, considering the size.) I wasn't bowled over by any of them, though one of the larger models from Divoom was pretty good. And the only reason I downgraded that thumb-sized speaker from X-Mini is because they haven't another, almost-exact same model that includes Bluetooth and therefore can be connected wirelessly. But the corded-model here is almost half the price of its Bluetooth cousin, so it's worth considering.  As always, because it's convoluted to re-code the article for these pages, I make things much easier on myself by linking to the column on the WGA website. You can find it here.
I have a new The Writers Workbench column posted -- this on portable power charging options. I can't quite fully explain why I like portable chargers, but I do. A lot of it is the efficient design, combined with usefulness. Anyway, as I've noted in the past, it's too convoluted to re-code the column for here, so instead I'll give you the link here, for thems what are interested. It's on both the Huffington Post and Writers Guild of America Online (for whom the column is initially written), and this is the WGA link, which generally includes more graphics and the TWW Notes at the end. You can find it here. There are some standard, but well-made products here, but also several different, interesting ones. Most notable are a portable battery that allows for charging a laptop (very useful on long plane flights), a pocket battery pack small enough to keep in your glove compartment that can actually charge your dead car battery (!), and a fascinating "inverter" that sits in your car's cup holder and uses the car's battery -- via the cigarette lighter -- allowing you to plug in appliances, which can be beneficial during a power failure. 
I have a new Writers Workbench tech review column. This one is about -- flashlights. Yes, flashlights. In this case, three new LED products from Energizer. I was initially going to include them in a larger column, but I liked them all so much I decided to focus on them alone. They're really quite good. No, really. How good? Good enough to get their own column. In fairness, they aren't all just flashlights precisely, but sort of lanterns, as well. But still...when's the last time you saw a review (let alone a home column) on flashlights? 
As I've mentioned in the past, it's too much of a convoluted mess trying to re-code the columns for the site here, so I provide a link to it instead. It's on both the Huffington Post and the Writers Guild Online (for whom the column is initially written), but the best version is WGA's since it include the TWW Notes at the end. You can find it here.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, and two best-selling novels, is a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and was for the Huffington Post. Among his other writing, he has a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel. As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.    
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