I can’t believe it but Women and Hollywood is entering its 7th year.  (And for the record I got a little bit ahead of myself – it’s our 6th birthday and we are going into our 7th year.) I know that some of you found us just this year and some (I hope many) of you have been here through it all.  

We’ve grown and changed so much over the years from a blog that just posted links, to developing a vision, to being on Indiewire, and hopefully to really having a voice in the conversation on women and entertainment.  

I wanted to share with you some changes that we have coming to the site.  As you may have noticed Kerensa Cadenas is the by-line that you read regularly.  She’s been with Women and Hollywood over a year and continues to take on additional responsibilities.  She is now the news editor/writer.  In my day to day work I have taken on more of an editorial role, and I am also constantly looking to bring in new voices to the site.  We want to curate the best conversations.  The guest post part of Women and Hollywood is one I am very proud of.  There are so many stories happening, to many for us to cover, but with the guest posts we are able to include many more voices and topics.

We also welcomed Kate Wilson from London and TV writer Alyssa Rosenberg to the site last month.  Kate will keep us up to date on the goings on in Europe, and Alyssa will continue to share her deep TV knowledge with us weekly.  

And I am happy to announce that we are getting into the Oscar discussion.  Susan Wloszczyna a longtime Oscar expert will be sharing her expertise with us in her weekly column: The Big O.  She’ll look at the Oscar race from the female perspective.  Her first column will publish tomorrow and it is an overview of the state of the race as we begin the fall.

As you can tell from her bio, we are very lucky to have a person with Susan’s expertise working with us.

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly 30 years at USA TODAY on the frontlines of the Oscar race in her various positions at the newspaper. They include being the Life section copy desk chief, a film critic for 12 years, a red-carpet, backstage and party reporter as well as a dogged pursuer of profiles and cultural trends during the movie awards season.  Wloszczyna also has earned her Oscarologist stripes as a veteran member of both the Gold Derby and Movie City News prediction team. 

We’re not done.  I hope to add a couple of more people to the site over the next few months.

One other thing to report is that I am going to be a columnist on Forbes.com.  The objective is to take the conversation about feminism and Hollywood to a bigger audience.

Last year was a big year with the publication of In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing (Volume 1). I was lucky enough to go to women’s film festivals abroad and to organize events with women directors in London, South Korea, Chicago, NY, and LA. This fall I am working on a series of west coast events including Seattle and Portland.  I am planning on having events in SF, LA DC and Boston.  And I will be attending several women’s film festivals including Citizen Jane and the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival.

We will be reaching out to film schools and programs that are focused on women and media and will do a big push to get In Her Voice in the classroom as we know that most film classes don’t include women’s voices.  We offer discounts for classrooms and also an opportunity to skype with the class to discuss the book with me.  The book is available in paperback from Amazon and in all download format here.  The other great news is now the book can be ordered in bookstores so you can walk into any bookstore and request a copy and they can get it!

And the good news is that we are making forward motion on Volume 2 which we hope will be available in 2014.  

And I can’t not talk about my work without mentioning the Athena Film Festival which will have its fourth edition next February.  As you can imagine it is a full time job working as the Artistic Director of a growing festival like ours.  I am so proud of what we have all accomplished over the last three years.

As you can see we have made huge strides over the last year, and the good news is the best is clearly ahead of us.  We — I know I jump back between we and I but I know that I can’t do this alone.  I thank everyone who reads the site and who tweets our articles, who likes us on facebook, who comments (except for you trolls) and who gives a shit about this issue.  And a big shout out to the people who support Women and Hollywood financially because this work takes money.  Every book you buy, every click you click helps support the work of Women and Hollywood.

This work is dedicated to all the women and men out there who are working in entertainment, trying to make a difference, trying to give us a diversity of women onscreen.  And it is dedicate to those women who believe in their vision and want to show us their world and perspective.  You make all of our lives richer and I thank you for letting me be a small part of it.

With deep gratitude,

Melissa