About PageCraft

We offer writers quality mentoring and guidance, with tools to develop new stories or evaluate and address problems in existing ones. We have developed our curriculum after years of working with mentors and industry professionals. Extensive experience judging for screenwriting contests has further helped us diagnose the common ways in which writers fall short.

Our goal is for each participant who joins a residential PageCraft lab or online workshop to leave with more polished skills, beneficial connections, and quality pages. We strive to ensure our training isn’t just another class, but something that helps writers achieve their visions and elevate their skills. Our programs feature a blend of writers’ room-style feedback, presentations and exercises, and one-on-one consultations. Many of our alumni have gone on to win contests, find representation, and sell projects. All have found new friends and colleagues. We are proud to be a valuable stepping stone in their career paths. Let us help you find your path too.

About the Partners

A graduate of UCLA’s screenwriting program, Heidi Hornbacher has written numerous features, treatments, and TV pilots for both studios and independent producers. In addition she has directed and produced numerous commercials, music videos, and other content for various artists and clients. She applies PageCraft story principles to her own projects and promises to pass along those same principles in accessible ways to help screenwriters of all levels unlock the potential of their writing. Heidi Hornbacher’s mission is that each client who passes through PageCraft’s virtual or physical doors leaves a better writer than when they came in.

Carlo Cavagna, a UCLA Screenwriting graduate and international business development expert, was the first to stand up the PageCraft concept, spearheading the inaugural program in Italy. He co-hosts with Heidi many of the online and residential programs and helped develop and refine the ever-expanding curriculum. An insightful story coach, his specialty is in diagnosing structural issues. Many PageCraft clients credit him for their ‘ah-hah’ moments, helping to get them unstuck and take their scripts to the next level.

PageCraft workshops are occasionally led by other top screenwriting teachers and working writers.

Meet our mentors.

Read Heidi’s blog about screenwriting.

Our Story

In 2008, UCLA screenwriting graduates Heidi and Carlo brought a group of UCLA writers and professor Paul Chitlik to Italy for a magical two weeks of writing. We got so much solid writing done, pushed our writing skills so much further, and had so much fun, that we decided it should be a regular thing.

In 2012 we expanded from the Tuscan gem, Villa Michelangelo (which gave PageCraft its original name, Michelangelo Screenwriting), to the charming hill town of Orvieto. In 2014, we launched U.S. workshops and script consulting services, changing our name to PageCraft to reflect the art and science of writing. As one of our instructors put it, “Although there’s a technique [to writing], there’s also a bit of mysticism to the creative process that’s tough to explain.”

In January 2020, we introduced our 10-week Concept to Pages curriculum with an in-person lab in Los Angeles, using a studio space belonging to an actor friend and alumna, Ellen Gerstein. By the middle of March, the lab had moved online, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. From that point forward, we have been running regular Concept to Pages and Writing is Rewriting labs on Zoom, along with many other offerings, from pitching classes to writers room simulations to podcasts. We launched scholarships for underrepresented writers in 2021, funded by our partners, the American Latino Theatre and Coven Film Festival, to whom we are deeply grateful. In 2022, we finally returned to Italy after a pandemic gap, and have been running residential screenwriting labs there ever since. These have been so successful that in 2023 we introduced a new location – the Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California.