Feb 11 2025 57 mins
Hal Ackerman is making his second appearance on StoryBeat. Hal spent thirty years teaching screenwriting in UCLA’s legendary screenwriting program. Along with Richard Walter and Lew Hunter, Hal helped launch the careers of many dozens of writers whose work you’ve seen on screens large and small.
Hal has sold film and television material to all the outlets. His screenplay Holmeyer’s Bridge, holds the unofficial Guinness record for having been continuously optioned for twenty consecutive years, owned during that stretch by two Academy Award winning producers, two Tony Award winning producers and others.
His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals. “Sweet Day” was recorded by the late Robert Forster. Concrete Charley and The Golden Boy won the 2020 Sports Literate Sport Short contest.
Hal’s written three “Soft boiled” murder mystery novels about an aging counter-culture P.I. named Harry Stein. The first of those, Stein Stung, won a Lovey award for best first novel. Subsequently, he published Stein Stoned and more recently, Smoke and Lather. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all three Stein books and can tell you Hal delivers a unique take on the detective genre. Funny while being dramatic, Hal’s writing is cleverly brilliant and brilliantly clever. I highly recommend all three Harry Stein books to you.
Hal’s also known for publishing the highly informative and truly useful book, Write Screenplays that Sell: The Ackerman Way. If you want insight from one of the foremost screenwriting teachers of the last half century, make a point to check it out.
Hal’s One-Man play, Testosterone: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man of Me (renamed Prick) won the William Saroyan award for drama and was named Best Play at the 2012 New York Solo Festival.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m proud to say I was fortunate to have been one of Hal’s many students while I was attending UCLA’s Graduate Screenwriting program.
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