A major milestone has arrived for screenwriter Emory Cain and his feature screenplay The Dream in His Pocket, adapted from the novella of the same name written by John DeRossett.
After months of writing, rewriting and refining the story, the completed screenplay has officially been submitted to the American Zoetrope Screenplay Competition.
For Cain, the submission represents something more important than simply entering another competition.
It represents finishing the work.
The Dream in His Pocket follows Jamie Matthews, a young man who leaves his West Virginia home behind and heads for New York City determined to become an actor. He arrives with little money, few connections and no guarantees — only a suitcase, a notebook and a dream he refuses to abandon.
What follows is a character-driven drama about ambition, friendship, rejection, sacrifice and the difference between dreaming about something and continuing to pursue it when the dream becomes difficult.
The screenplay has undergone substantial development on its way to the finished version.
Characters evolved. Scenes disappeared. Others were rewritten or added. Relationships deepened. The timeline was refined, and storylines that once existed on the page were reconsidered when they no longer served the larger story.
Eventually, every screenplay reaches the point when the writer has to stop rewriting and allow the work to stand on its own.
For The Dream in His Pocket, that moment has arrived.
Submitting the screenplay to American Zoetrope places Cain’s work into competition with screenwriters from around the world. Founded by filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, American Zoetrope has long been associated with independent filmmaking and the development of original cinematic voices.
No competition comes with guarantees, and Cain approaches the submission with that understanding.
What happens next is now largely outside the writer’s control.
What matters today is that a story that once existed only as an idea has become a completed feature screenplay — and that screenplay is now out in the world being judged on its merits.
That alone represents an accomplishment worth marking.
The Dream in His Pocket is also the first screenplay being presented under Emory Cain’s association with Everward Storyworks and represents an important part of Everward’s growing commitment to original stories developed for the screen.
For now, Jamie Matthews’ journey has reached another destination.
The screenplay is finished.
The submission has been made.
And somewhere beyond the page, perhaps, another journey is just beginning.
