Cirrus@Austlit

Television script-writer.

Booton works primarily (though not exclusively) in soap operas, including Neighbours and Home and Away (for which she wrote between 1990 and 1991).

Neighbours was Booton's first script-writing job. In an interview with Neighbours fansite Perfect Blend, she notes:

'My career really started with Neighbours. I'd joined Grundy Television as a script typist and written a submission for Prisoner, so management knew I was interested in writing. When Neighbours moved from Network Seven to Channel Ten at the end of its first series, there was a scramble to re-staff the writing team. I was offered a job as a trainee storyliner and, since it paid ten dollars more a week, I jumped at the chance!'

Booton notes in the interview that she occupied a number of roles in the fifteen years for which she worked for Neighbours:

'I sometimes joke that I've been with Neighbours longer than anyone since I typed the first episode of the first series. But the real association started with trainee storyliner on the Channel Ten series. I had very generous people to give me on-the-job training, including Ray Kolle, Ysabelle Dean and Rick Maier. As I gained experience, I was able to rise through the ranks, so to speak. I became a fully-fledged storyliner, then began writing scripts, then editing them. Later I became the story editor and - much later, when Grundy moved the Neighbours writing team from Sydney to Melbourne - I was Script Producer for a brief period.'

She has also worked on soap operas outside Australia. In 1995, she worked for the long-running German soap opera Verbotene Liebe, set in Cologne and Düsseldorf and then in its first year: she is credited as both storyliner and dramaturge. She was the head writer on long-running New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street, a position that she left Neighbours to accept.

Booton also contributed scripts to two of Jonathan M. Shiff Productions' science-fiction children's series: Ocean Girl (1995-1997) and Thunderstone (1999).

Further Reference

'Lois Booton [interview].' Perfect Blend (http://perfectblend.net/features/interview-booton.htm) 22 November 2003. (Sighted: 13/11/2012)