Stephen Potts
Stephen Potts
Award-winning screenwriter and novelist
I live in a small 18 century cottage in the Lammermuir Hills, part of Scotland’s Border country – where my ancestors plied their trade as cattle thieves and outlaws five hundred years ago. I share my home with my wife, our two children, and two young Labradors who stay fit chasing rabbits and deer. I spend any spare time on board a sailing boat in the Firth of Forth.
December 2013 I have been commissioned by Kasia Skibinska of Cassiopeia Pictures as to adapt John Kretschmer's book At The Mercy Of the Sea.
April 2013 Deal confirmed with Iron Box Films to develop GLAZVOROV, my original historically set horror, as a feature film.
March 2013 Deal confirmed with Itchy Fish Film to adapt Jessica Francis Kane's WW2 novel The Report as a feature film
December 2012 Joined by my family to pick up the Angel Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Compass Murphy at Monaco Film Festival
NEWS
May 2023 15th Edition of McLeod's Clinical Assessment published this month. I wrote the chapter on assessing mental states.
July 2022 More projects with 26. The Story's Not Over, supporting wildlife at risk, and The Understory, about trees, have just been published as ebooks on kindle.
February 2022 Awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in recognition of my work with the transplant service.
June 2020 Glad to have been part of another 26 project, 26 weeks, documenting responses to the pandemic, for which I interviewed a colleague who volunteered as an ICU nurse.
November 2019 I contributed a poem and short essay to the latest 26 project, 26 Trees.
September 2019 My blog about recent writing experiences appeared on Stage 32
September 2019 A medical book to which I contributed a chapter won Best Student Textbook at the BMA book awards
June 2019 The IWM/26 Armistice 100days project took first prize in the Writing for Design category at the Drum Design Awards
October 18 My "centena" was published in the IWM/26 Armistice 100days project
July 18 Meetings in London about a UK-set version of my medical drama
Nov 17 Lots of pitch meetings in LA
July 2017 SHRINK PROOF made the final of another US TV contest.
June 2017 Profiled in RCPsych magazine (p 15).
March 2017 Featured in the Guest Blog at RCPsych in Scotland.
February 2017 Meetings in London and Edinburgh in connection with three current projects, all still under wraps for now.
January - March 2017 Presentations on Anatomy of Malice to audiences in Glasgow and Edinburgh, following on from earlier talks in Stirling and Dundee. People seem interested.
November 2016 My blog about AFM appeared in Lucy Hay's Bang2Write website
November 2016
Pitching of Anatomy of Malice went well at AFM.
While there I signed a deal on another project. Details to be announced early next year. Glass of champagne in order. LA prices meant there was only one.
October 2016 Final preparations underway for my trip to AFM next week, mainly to pitch my dramatisation of Anatomy of Malice
October 2016 Shrink Proof made the QF of Shore Script's contest
October 2016 Shrink Proof included in Tracking Boards's List of the top pilots of 2016. Nice review (on page 28)
September 2016 Shrink Proof made the QF of Screencraft's Pilot Launch contest
July 2016. Shrink Proof made the second cut (top 50) of Launch Pad, but alas not the third.
June 2016 My TV drama pilot Shrink Proof made the first cut (top 75) of Launch Pad, a major US writing competition.
June 2016 I have just signed a deal for the rights to adapt this book, dramatising a new angle on the trials.
March 2016 Trip to LA, pitching projects including Shrink Proof.
January 2016 My role is out on the transplant service's new website
October 2015 Compass Murphy made the semifinal of the 2015 Adapted Screenplay competition.
October 2015 (see August) Shrink Proof has now made the final. The prize: 12 weeks mentoring with a specialist based in LA.
August 2015 My proposal for the pilot of a new TV medical series (title: Shrink Proof) made the semifinal of this US-based competition
July 2015 The transplant unit where I work was featured in a two-part BBC TV documentary recently.
April 2015 In the latest project by 26, the loose writer's collective, 26 writers were each assigned a station on the rail route from and a Nick Drake song. I was given Carlisle and "Fruit Tree."
This is what I did with it, using some of the song lyrics, and some language from the Carlisle cursing stone.
(For those with him, Nick Drake was an English folk singer who died by suicide at 27, but whose work is now being rediscovered).
April 2015 My Script for The Report (see below) is one of a handful selected from 200+ worldwide for presentation via Maison des Scenaristes at Cannes Film Festival in May.
September 2014 My script for At the Mercy of the Sea (see below) is with a couple of the guys currently very busy on this (rather bigger!) project.
August 2014 In March I gave a talk on transplant psychiatry in Oxford. I was then invited into a studio to deliver an impromptu version. It's now live.
August 2014 I made a small contribution to the recently published Oxford textbook on Toxicology
June 2014 The video pitch for SHRINK PROOF is
April 2014 Earlier this year I submitted my TV medical drama SHRINK PROOF to WILDsound Festival in Toronto. I recently learnt that it won their April competition, the reward for which is a live reading. Here it is.
December 2013 My script The Report: Tragedy at Bethnal Green won Best Historical Drama and Best Adaptation at Monaco Film Festival. Thanks to UK air travel chaos I couldn't get there, but producer TJ Herbert accepted on my behalf. The script has attracted serious interest from a major UK production company.
October 2013 My script adapting The Report (see below) has been made Official Selection in the Screenplay Awards at Monaco Film Festival
June 2013 This article (about balancing writing and the day job) was recently published in UK Writer, the house journal of the Writers' Guild of GB. just gone up on their website, for wider access.
May 2013 My Script adapting Hans Maarten van Den Brink's novel ON THE WATER has won a Van Gogh Award at the Amsterdam Film Festival. Best adaptation and 5th place overall.
November 2012 Great evening at the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum last night. My historically set horror film GLAZVOROV was one of three scripts to have extracts given a staged rehearsed reading before a live audience, and then subject to incisive public notes by uber-eminent director John Madden (of Shakespeare In Love fame). The introductory music, composed by Jim Sutherland, was suitably foreboding and Russian.
November 2012 Monaco International Film Festival has announced its programme. Compass Murphy is in official selection for a screenwriting award (Best Adaptation)
October 2012 Through to quarterfinals of the Screenwriting Goldmine competition with two projects: The Dog Walker (crime thriller) and Talking Shop (pilot for a new TV medical drama series)
September 2012 Just heard that Compass Murphy has won "Best Adapted Screenplay at an International Film Festival. Can't say more until the official announcement is made.
August 2012 Made the Quarterfinals of Final Draft's Big Break Competition with my adaptation of Compass Murphy
June 2012 Selected as one of the writers for 26 Treasures of Childhood
January 2012 My first book, Hunting Gumnor, was published in 1999. It's now my first e-book for Kindle.
January 2012 Guest blogging for a US website about my day job as a transplant psychiatrist
December 2011 I now UK agent to my US manager. She's the lovely Janice Day at Smart Talent
October 2011 Trailer for TV pilot of Acting Raw released via Youtube
October 2011 Delighted my script adapting Compass Murphy has been selected for David ("Finding Nemo") Reynolds' workshop at the London Screenwriters' Festival.
October 2011 My entry for the London Screenwriters' Festival 1-page screenplay competition (theme - recent riots) didn't make the cut. Here it is.
August 2011 Just signed option contract for my next feature film screenplay. Two production companies and a director on board.
May 2011 Selected as a writer for the 26 Treasures project at the National Museum of Scotland. Delighted to learn my assigned object is the Cramond Lioness
May 2011 First production companies expressing interest in On the Water
May 2011 Acting Raw pilot shot and now in post-production, after much pitching at Cannes
April 2011 Selected as one of two writers for the pilot of Acting RAW
March 2011 Signed up as at Turning the Next Page, a workshop for emerging creative writers.
February 2011 Contract signed for On the Water. Now to start implementing a strategy to get the
January 2011 I've just confirmed a deal via the Dutch publisher, adapt HMvan den Brink's novel On the Water as a feature film.