Jill Golick (born 1956 in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

, story editor, digital creator and

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

ger.

Education

Golick attended

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

, and is a graduate of the

Canadian Film Centre The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is a charitable organization founded in 1988 by filmmaker Norman Jewison in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Originally launched as a film school, today it provides training, development and advancement opportunities for ...

. She lives and works in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Career

Golick writes primarily for convergent or cross-platform media. Early in her career she worked on many Canadian children's programs. More recently, she has written dramas and comedies aimed at prime time. She has also written for three soap operas including the Canadian night time soap, '' Metropia'', on which she served as Head Writer and Executive Story Editor. The highlight of Golick's career was writing a couple of episodes of ''

Wizadora ''Wizadora'' is a children's television programme created by Don Arioli and Carolyne Cullum. It was originally broadcast on SWR in 1991 and it was used as an English-language learning tool for non-English speakers. In 1993, the series was pic ...

''.

New media steps

In the wake of the 2007–2008

Writers Guild of America The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is the name of two American labor unions representing writers in film, television, radio, and online media: * The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) is headquartered in New York City and is affiliated wit ...

strike, Golick became one of the first Canadian screenwriters to experiment in online storytelling. Her first effort, boymeetsgrrl, told the tale of a dating couple, Simon Beals and Ali Barret. Simon and Ali's romance was explored through

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

wall messages and status updates,

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

tweets, blog entries and

video blog A vlog (), also known as a video blog or video log, is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one ta ...

segments. Controversy erupted when Golick presented her findings to a Casecamp conference in 2008. Several people in the audience, upon realizing that they'd been "friended" by Golick's digital avatars, complained to Facebook and had the profiles deleted. Afterward, Golick agreed that there seemed to be a disconnect between the marketers and the creative storytellers about what constituted a "proper use of the medium." "One of the things that so interesting about this little flurry around boymeetgrrl! is that people aren’t upset at sneaky underhanded sales tactics," Golick wrote on a now deleted blogpost for Story2.OH. "They’re not all upset that I was trying to sell them something. They’re angry because art infiltrated their lives. They got swept up into a story and didn’t realize till later that these were characters and not real people. The characters didn’t do anything to them, they weren’t evil or malicious. They just tried to be friendly, funny and entertaining." Golick continues to develop new online projects through Story2.OH, including the award winning digital detective series for tweens, Ruby Skye PI (Web Series). Golick maintains a

, ''Running With My Eyes Closed'', on television writing and is currently the president of the

Writers Guild of Canada The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) is a trade union representing professional writers working in film, television, radio, and digital media production in Canada. Members of the WGC write dramatic TV series, feature films, Movies of the Week, do ...

. She teaches television writing and transmedia at

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

in Toronto, Ontario.

Selected TVography

* '' The Smoggies'' * ''Chicken Minute'' * ''Eric's World'' * ''

Shining Time Station ''Shining Time Station'' is a children's television series jointly created by British television producer Britt Allcroft and American television producer Rick Siggelkow. The series was produced by Quality Family Entertainment (the American bran ...

'' * ''Kratt's Creatures'' * ''

Wimzie's House ''Wimzie's House'' is a Canadian children's television series produced in Montreal which ran in the French language as ''La Maison de Ouimzie'' on Télévision de Radio-Canada in the morning and Radio-Québec in late afternoons beginning Septem ...

'' * ''

Magic Adventures of Mumfie ''Magic Adventures of Mumfie'' (full on-screen title: ''Britt Allcroft's Magic Adventures of Mumfie'') is a British animated children's television series and movie, inspired by the ''Mumfie'' books written and illustrated by Katharine Tozer (19 ...

'' * ''

Zoboomafoo ''Zoboomafoo'' is a live-action/animated children's television series that originally aired on PBS from January 25, 1999, to November 21, 2001. After the original run on public television, reruns were shown on Universal Kids#As PBS Kids Sprout/S ...

'' * '' Blue Murder'' * '' Metropia'' * ''

Instant Star ''Instant Star'' is a Canadian musical comedy-drama television series which aired from 15 September 2004 to 26 June 2008. The series stars Alexz Johnson as teenage singing competition winner Jude Harrison. The show chronicles Harrison's experienc ...

'' * ''

Rotten Ralph ''Rotten Ralph'' is a series of children's picture books written by Jack Gantos and illustrated by Nicole Rubel. About twenty ''Rotten Ralph'' books have been published from 1976 to 2011. ''Rotten Ralph'' is also the first book in the series, ...

'' * '' Noddy'' * ''

Ripley's Believe It or Not! ''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' is an American franchise founded by Robert Ripley, which deals with bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. Originally a newspaper panel, the ''Believe It or Not'' ...

'' * ''

The Busy World of Richard Scarry ''The Busy World of Richard Scarry'' is an animated children's television series, produced by CINAR Animation and France Animation in association with Paramount Television, that aired from 1994 to 1996, first on Showtime, later on Nickelodeon, ...

'' * ''

Foreign Affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit organization, nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership or ...

'' * ''

Skinnamarink TV ''Skinnamarink TV'' is a children's television show created by Richard Mortimer and starring Sharon, Lois & Bram. The series originally aired on CBC Television in Canada, and in the United States on The Learning Channel's programming block ''Ready ...

References

External links

*
Running With My Eyes Closed
Golick's blog
Story2Oh
Golick's online storytelling site {{DEFAULTSORT:Golick, Jill 1956 births Living people Anglophone Quebec people Canadian bloggers Canadian soap opera writers Women soap opera writers Writers from Montreal Canadian women screenwriters Canadian Film Centre alumni 20th-century Canadian women writers 20th-century Canadian non-fiction writers Canadian women bloggers Canadian women television writers Canadian television writers Screenwriters from Quebec