In this episode of Playwright's Spotlight, I speak to playwright Jonathan Cook about festivals, submission fees, and dealing with rejection. We also discuss the pathway to playwriting with no formal training and learning from reading bad material. Jonathan shares his experience with getting published and his extensive knowledge in creating and producing audio versions of plays as a podcast. Jonathan supplies a lot of great resources in this episode, all which can be found in the show notes. Be sure to take advantage of it all. Jonathan Cook is a playwright, actor, and filmmaker based in Georgia. Many of his short plays have been produced in theaters around the world, and most notably, he was a semi-finalist in the 37th annual Samual French Off-Broadway Festival in New York with his post-apocalyptic play LOBSTER MAN. His play INSURGENTS  was also a semi-finalist in the 2020 ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest. He is  a five-time recipient of the Porter Fleming Literary Award in the playwriting category and some of his works have been published in anthologies by Smith & Kraus. He is also the host and producer of GATHER BY THE GHOSTLIGHT, a collection of plays adapted to an audio only format. To view the video format of this episode, visit the link below - https://youtu.be/0MUIOE8QvVI Links to sites and resources mentioned in this episode - Short + Sweet Festival - https://shortandsweet.org New Play Exchange - https://newplayexchange.org Le Chat Noir - http://www.lcnaugusta.com Playwright's Binge Blog - https://groups.io/g/playwrightbinge NYC Playwrights - https://www.nycplaywrights.org/ Playwrights Center - https://www.nycplaywrights.org/ ScreenCraft - https://screencraft.org/ Pittsburgh New Works Festival - https://pittsburghnewworks.org/ Smith & Kraus - https://www.smithandkraus.com/annuals Gather by the Ghostlight - https://gatherbytheghostlight.podbean.com Porter Fleming Literary Competition - https://www.themorris.org/porter-fleming-literary-competition/ Contact information for Jonathan Cook and Gather by the Ghostlight - www.jonathanrcook.com [email protected] Websites and socials for James Elden, Punk Monkey Productions and Playwright's Spotlight Punk Monkey Productions - www.punkmonkeyproductions.com PLAY Noir - www.playnoir.com PLAY Noir Anthology – www.punkmonkeyproductions.com/contact.html James Elden - Twitter - @jameseldensauer IG - @alakardrake FB - fb.com/jameseldensauer Punk Monkey Productions and PLAY Noir -  Twitter - @punkmonkeyprods                   - @playnoirla  IG - @punkmonkeyprods        - @playnoir_la  FB - fb.com/playnoir         - fb.com/punkmonkeyproductions Playwright's Spotlight - Twitter - @wrightlightpod  IG - @playwrights_spotlight Playwriting services through Los Angeles Collegiate Playwrights Festival www.losangelescollegiateplaywrightsfestival.com/services.html