Welcome preeminent screenwriter and author Billy Ray for a meet and greet featuring his electrifying debut novel!
The Healdsburg International Short Film Festival welcomes preeminent screenwriter and author Billy Ray for a meet and greet featuring his electrifying debut – Burn the Water!
Drop by the Raven on Saturday, September 26 between 11:00am – 12:30pm to meet the author, snap a picture, and get your books signed.
From the award-winning screenwriter of The Hunger Games comes an immersive and breathtaking enemies-to-lovers epic romance about war, loyalty, and the power that love has to save… or destroy.
The year is 2425 and London is underwater.
Three hundred years ago, rising oceans drowned a vast majority of the English Isle. London is now a jungle of dead skyscrapers and submerged streets.
Fighting over the scraps of a world none can remember, two Houses — the Crowns and the Rogues — have been at war for three centuries.
Rafe is the Rogue army’s fiercest captain. Jule is the Crown army’s deadliest soldier. They are vicious and merciless, courageous and beloved by their Houses. They are sworn enemies.
And then they fall in love.
It’s a death sentence. But their love is all-consuming. As Rafe and Jule try to keep each other alive in their war-torn world, they are forced to confront new, horrifying threats to their loved ones while the hatred between their Houses only grows.
When mysterious foreigners appear on their shores, the warring factions may destroy each other, unless their two most ruthless soldiers can become beacons of peace and possibility, showing their people a different way, and save them all.
From the award-winning screenwriter of The Hunger Games comes a visceral and breathless forbidden romance about sacrifice, the neverending cycle of violence, and fiery, all-powerful love.
Author: Billy Ray is one of modern Hollywood’s preeminent screenwriters and the author of Burn the Water. He wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Captain Phillips, for which he won the Writers Guild of America Award. Ray’s films as writer, co-writer, or writer-director include The Hunger Games, Richard Jewell, Shattered Glass, Showtime’s The Comey Rule, and the forthcoming Sunrise on the Reaping. Billy lives in Los Angeles. He believes in democracy, justice, his children, and the Dodgers.
Set in the heart of California wine country, the highly anticipated Healdsburg International Short Film Festival (HISFF) returns this September for its 5th year, promising another weekend of unforgettable cinema, parties, and a red carpet opening night. This three-day festival runs from September 25th through September 27th. Organized in collaboration with the Healdsburg Center for the Arts (HCA), HISFF 2026 coincides with HCA’s Festival of the Arts, creating a vibrant, art-filled weekend.