Jill Golick - New Media Steps

New Media Steps

In the wake of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Golick became one of the first Canadian screenwriters to experiment in online storytelling. Her first effort, boymeetsgrrl, told the tale of a dating couple, Simon Beals and Ali Barret. Simon and Ali's romance was explored through Facebook wall messages and status updates, Twitter tweets, blog entries and video blog segments.

Controversy erupted when Golick presented her findings to a Casecamp conference in 2008. Several people in the audience, upon realizing that they'd been "friended" by Golick's digital avatars, complained to Facebook and had the profiles deleted. Afterward, Golick agreed that there seemed to be a disconnect between the marketers and the creative storytellers about what constituted a "proper use of the medium." "One of the things that so interesting about this little flurry around boymeetgrrl! is that people aren’t upset at sneaky underhanded sales tactics," Golick wrote. "They’re not all upset that I was trying to sell them something. They’re angry because art infiltrated their lives. They got swept up into a story and didn’t realize till later that these were characters and not real people. The characters didn’t do anything to them, they weren’t evil or malicious. They just tried to be friendly, funny and entertaining."

Golick continues to develop new online projects through Story2.OH, including the award winning digital detective series for tweens, Ruby Skye PI (Web Series).

Golick maintains a blog, Running With My Eyes Closed, on television writing and is currently the president of the Writers Guild of Canada and the chair of the Canadian Screenwriting Awards. She teaches television writing and transmedia at York University in Toronto, Ontario.