A Bermudian author is off to Hollywood after the screenplay she wrote won a coveted award.Kara Smith was astounded to discover that she won the grand prize for original TV drama in the Hollywood Screenplay Contest.Although the award provides limited funds, it rewards winners with access to industry bigwigs.The accolade comes after years of struggle for the 28-year-old.She moved to the UK with her son Judah in 2009 to pursue a master’s degree in screenwriting at the University of Westminster.“I’m a single mom. It’s not easy — I have been out there, struggling, not having a comfortable time of it,” she said.Her script for the 60-minute pilot episode of ‘Parole’ is based around the experiences of a Michigan parole officer and has an orchestrated gang war as its backdrop.It also took an award at this year’s New York Screenplay Contest, was shortlisted for the Ustinov Award at the International Emmy Awards and was runner-up at the 2012 Great Lakes International Script Writing Competition.“I was really hungry trying to get an agent,” she recalled. She sent out 150 letters hoping to find someone who would represent her — and got rejected by them all.“They didn’t think ‘Parole’ was good enough or captivating enough. It was so disappointing.”She managed to get an internship after her graduation last year. Even though she was verging on broke, she worked for free.“The industry is so saturated, so competitive, it’s not for the fainthearted,” she explained.Ms Smith now faces a challenge in getting the funds to travel to the Hollywood Screenplay Contest awards ceremony in California on November 10.However she was adamant she would be there even “if I have to go by boat”.The niece of Education Minister Dame Jennifer Smith vowed to bring the example of her hard-won rewards back home.“I hope that this can open doors for Bermuda, for any young people involved in the arts, especially writing,” she told The Royal Gazette.“Keep on doing it. Things like this do happen.”She added: “There have been times in Bermuda, especially with the arts, when people wanted to encourage me to do something safer. It’s so hard to have any successful career in the arts. And there were times when people said, ‘Come home, get a real job, make some money and try again.’ But I just couldn’t.”Originally from Hamilton Parish, she acknowledged the crucial support of her family — and the Bermuda Arts Council.The group helped pay her way to a screenwriting conference at the Austin Film Festival at a time when “I had no money”, she said.“I came home from that, and I applied to film school. They made it possible. There is support in Bermuda, and they probably need to know that they played that role.”Aside from her master's degree, Ms Smith has a postgraduate degree in psychology and an undergraduate degree in public relations. Still, she is driven on by the fundamental urgency of writing.“I don’t know how to do anything other than this. I don’t write because I want to. I write because I have to,” she explained.Ms Smith said she and a group of friends hoped in time to bring a “talent lab” to Bermuda.“Maybe in the New Year,” she said. “We’re talking about coming to Bermuda for the young people there who are interested in filmmaking. I’d really like that.”For now, she’s headed West to meet the men and women of the industry who could make her TV show a reality, still stunned by the e-mail announcing her success.Send her an e-mail: karagoestohollywood@gmail.com.Useful website: www.hollywoodscreenplaycontest.com.