BAYVIEW — There she was, speechless, when her name was called.

“All I remember was that Eric kept saying, ‘I told you to write a speech! I told you to write a speech!’”

A speech would have been a good thing, Suzanne Kelman said, as she described the moment when her screenplay, “Maggie the Brave,” won first place for “Best Feature Screenplay” in the comedy category at the 2011 Los Angeles United Film Festival Awards earlier this month. She and traveling companion Eric Mulholland had ensconced themselves at the funky Los Feliz theater in downtown LA where the awards were being presented, ready to watch the parade of winners and have some fun.

Kelman talked about the experience this week at her home in Bayview.

“I didn’t know what to say when I got to the podium,” Kelman said, with her broad Brit’s laugh.

“I was a little shocked and I even forgot Eric’s name when I went to thank him for coming with me.”

But she managed to accept the award finally with her English comedic grace.

This was one of the last of a series of screenwriting contests in which Kelman had entered “Maggie the Brave.” Kelman describes her film as “Waking Ned Devine” meets “Amazing Grace.”

Her story takes place in 1978 England where a quirky British spinster named Maggie Cooper must become a disco partner to a middle-aged John Travolta wannabe, who must masquerade as her husband in order for her to keep her home and avoid being put out to pasture in a retirement community.

By then the script had made its way to the top of several contest lists, including MovieHatch.com’s, a website devoted to using public opinion to get movies made through an online voting system. On that site, “Maggie the Brave” was voted to the top six and garnered the attention of MovieHatch executives who have chosen the script as one to back financially.

“I spoke with the CEO of MovieHatch yesterday,” Kelman said Thursday.

“The screenplay is definitely ‘optioned’ with MovieHatch, which means they act as the executive directors on the film. They are at the moment raising the money to produce it, and when that is done they will partner with one of the studios and attach the talent and the ‘on set’ working production team,” she added.

What’s interesting, Kelman said, is that the script is not your typical “sexy” story, which everybody thinks is the expectation

in Hollywood. But the general tone of the comments Kelman received from the judges at this most recent festival were encouraging.

“The greatest part of the trip for me was getting to talk to the people who read my script,” Kelman said.

She wanted to know why they chose it; what was it about her script that interested them.

“One guy that I spoke to said, ‘I loved it. It was a small story with huge characters.’”

Another important quality the script has, they told her, was good structure.

“What I’m learning backwards is that you have to know your structure of a screenplay,” Kelman said.

“It’s so important. You have to know that this has to happen by page 15, and then another thing has to happen by page 25. That judge told me my structure was flawless.”

Kelman sees what’s happening with “Maggie the Brave” as a huge encouragement to keep going. She has more than seven other projects in the works presently and said she will adapt “Maggie” into a stage script to present on Whidbey Island using many of the actors who helped her create the trailer for the contest circuit.

She sees a long list of possibilities for the future regarding her new writing endeavors.

The fact that she could pull off doing something that she had never done before — write an award-winning screenplay at age 45 — is a testament, she said, to the truth that you can do something if you put your mind to it.

“The last thing I won was a bag of marbles in the second grade,” Kelman said. “I guess I’ll have to wait another 40 years; I’ll be in my 80s when I win something again.

“No, but it’s a real boost for ‘Maggie,’ and now the script has to take its own course.”

Kelman has come full circle in the year since she rushed to finish her first screenplay in time for the “pitching” season. Now she has her sights set on June when she returns with a new script to the Great American PitchFest in Burbank, Calif. where she first pitched “Maggie.”

“It’s very different from ‘Maggie.’ It’s a heartfelt piece about World War II that I’m writing with Rosie,” she said, referring to her writing partner Rosie Woods.

“I love having different projects going at once,” she said.

“I write down an idea ina shortened form. Then I wait for the bigger story to hit me.”

Watch the trailer for “Maggie the Brave” and follow its course at www.maggiethebrave.com.

Patricia Duff can be reached at 221-5300 or pduff@whidbeynewsgroup.com.