Why are TV holiday movies so popular? Why is Connecticut a great place for a fictional holiday setting? Find out the answers to these questions and more by attending a discussion with Hallmark screenwriter and Connecticut resident Julie Sherman Wolfe on Monday, Dec 11, at 2 p.m., hosted by the University of Hartford’s Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies. and co-sponsored by the Friends of the Avon Free Public Library. The event is free and open to the public and will take place in Wilde Auditorium, located in the Harry Jack Gray Center on UHart’s campus, 200 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, Connecticut.
The conversation with Wolfe will be led by Amy Weiss, director of the Greenberg Center at the University of Hartford and will explore the reasons why people love watching holiday movies, who is watching them, and what it’s like to see to see a story come to life on TV.
Wolfe has been writing for television and film for more than 25 years. Since penning her first Hallmark movie in 2015 (Hello, It’s Me), she has written 24 more for the network, including One Royal Holiday, The Birthday Wish, and A Holiday Spectacular featuring the Radio City Rockettes, and Hanukkah on Rye. Two of her “fall-themed” movies aired this year and she wrote another Hanukkah movie set to air in 2024.
Before finding her home at Hallmark, Wolfe also wrote for the young-adult fiction audience (including the WGA Award-winning Avalon High), animation (Baby Blues), primetime sitcoms (3rd Rock from the SunI, Phil of the Future), independent features, and numerous half-hour pilots. In 2017, Wolfe and her family fulfilled a lifelong dream to relocate from Los Angeles to New England. They are now living their own “Real Life Hallmark Movie” in a small town in Connecticut, where a “traffic jam” is a couple of cars stopping to let a bear cross the street.
Advanced registration is preferred for the event by emailing mgcjs@hartford.edu.