I am delighted to say our film Death By Fruitcake won Best Feature Film at the Star City Film Festival at Waukon, Iowa. The film was screened July 31 through August 2 with other entries at the Waukon High School and some entries were shown, and the awards presented (on August 3), at the Three Dolphins Theater, an intime venue on Dr. Regan’s property in Waukon, a lovely small town in a scenic setting that reminded us of Galena, Illinois, one of our favorite places (and setting of my novels Girl Most Likely and Girl Can’t Help It— coincidentally I signed a copy of the latter for one of the attendees).

The filmmakers present were a friendly and supportive bunch, but a smallish (twenty or so?) of the 44 entries, some of which represented a world-wide range of filmmaker ranging from Thailand to Iraq and Ukraine.

A highlight for me was a reading on Sunday before the awards of a section of Dying in the Postwar World by three talented actors from Chicago who had films in the festival. It was a cold table read and they did an incredible job.

Next week I’ll finally get around to a more lengthy report of our experiences at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Dr. Katie Regan, director of the Star City Film Festival, (left) with Barbara Allan

(l to r) Dr. Katie O’Regan, screen directions; Paul Kendall (Heller); Kelly Combs (Peg Heller and other female characters), Alan Blake (Sam Flood and other male characters).

Dr. Katie O’Regan and M.A.C.