The Creatives
Discover and connect with the entertainment industry’s disabled creative community across our programs.
Find program participants alphabetically:
Go Deeper With Our Writers and Filmmakers
Funders or industry members looking to learn more about our program participants can find their extended bios below. You can also discover more about them through our Inevitable Insider profile series.
If you want to get in touch with a creative but can’t find a way to reach them, please email us.
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Elevate Collective ‘25
A Dominican-American writer and producer, Ana Defillo (she/her) crafts absurd, surprising stories that challenge power and celebrate humanity through a singular lens. Her credits include Showtime’s Desus and Mero, Fuse’s The Read, and PBS’ The Vote. Her honors and achievements span the 2023 MovieMaker Magazine’s Screenwriter to Watch list, the 2025 Disability Belongs Entertainment Lab Fellowship, and the 2024 Disrupters Fellowship. She has also been named a 2023 Rideback Rise Circle Member and was selected for the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s 2021 Series Scriptwriters Program.
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Anna (she/her) has built a fiction podcast career out of pipe cleaners, hot glue, and used computer parts. She graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Film and Media Arts, and her auto-biographical documentary about her experience with autism was a finalist in the Utah Arts Fear No Film Festival in 2018. Her flagship fiction podcast, Find Us Alive, began as a passion project and has since grown into a six-time award-nominated show with an active fanbase.
Contact: Website
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘25
A graduate of Emerson College, Anna Thorup (she/her) has worked in support staff positions for DreamWorks Animation and Netflix. In addition to being a Writer’s Assistant on Best Foot Forward (Apple TV+), she has written on a variety of animated shows for Netflix, Nickelodeon, Apple, and PBS. Anna has also sold two half-hour pilots to ABC.
She is repped by Sydney Blanke & Antoni Kaczmarek at Sugar23 and
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Elevate Collective ‘24
Anne (she/her) is a director and screenwriter who writes about mental health, neurodiversity, cancer and disability. She writes in order to connect with others, and to inspire her readers. Anne has adapted books for the screen, developed feature film and pilot scripts for major studios including Paramount and Miramax, and directed episodic television. Hamilton is a graduate of The American Film Institute as well as the NBC Female Forward Directing Program, the CBS Diversity Directing Initiative, the Fox Filmmaker Labs, as well as Stanford and Yale Law School. She is repped by Michael Klein & Shelley Browning at Magnolia Entertainment.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘24
Alex (he/him) is a Spanish filmmaker who writes about the complexities of the human condition and believes in the power of cinema to reflect and effect change. While recovering from an amputation, he moved to New York on a Fulbright Grant to pursue an MFA in Film and became a writer. Since then he’s written and directed the feature film Unicorns, co-written the feature We Are Living Things, and made two documentaries and several short films. Among other accolades, Alex was awarded the 2024 SundanceGrand Jury Prize for his short film The Masterpiece as well as seven New York Emmys. Alex is repped by Jacob Snyder at Range.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘23, Visionary Fellowship ‘24
Alys (she/her) is a screenwriter and romance novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana. After graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and receiving her Master’s in Film Studies from King’s College London, Alys became a three-time internationally bestselling romance novelist before transitioning to film and television writing. She has written for Hallmark, Lifetime, ViacomCBS, as well as for the U.K. market. Represented by Matt Felker and Norris Brooks of CAA, as well as Maggie Cooper of Aevitas Creative, she writes crowd-pleasing genre fare for the romantic in all of us.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘23
Andrew (he/him) is a disabled Jamaican-Cuban storyteller who migrated to the United States at the age of 10. He gravitates toward genre films and untold dramas within the world of disability, mental health, and the Caribbean community. He is a DGA Award-winning director and MFA graduate from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He was recently nominated at the NAACP Image Awards, HBOMax Latino Short Film Competition, and Best of NewFilmmakers LA.
Contact: Website
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘22
Anton (he/him) is a poly-ethnic (Cherokee, Lakota, and French) writer who works most often in the one-hour drama space, with a special fondness for sci-fi and urban fantasy. Anton began writing in guardtowers in 2003 after being deployed overseas in Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia during the Iraq War. He ended his military career when circumstances forced him to confront his new reality as a disabled soldier. Anton went on to earn his BFA in acting at CalArts and MFA in directing from East 15th in London. At CalArts, he met long-time collaborator and writing partner Paul Masterson with whom he created a production company, Warrior Poet. To date, they have made over thirty pieces of film and theater. Anton has written, directed and produced pieces of theater and film in New York, Los Angeles, Eugene, and London, and completed the WGA Veterans Writing Project. He is seeking representation.
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘21
Aoife (they/she) and Greg (he/him) are neurodivergent writers from Maine who reside in L.A. The duo tell stories about found families that battle against unjust systems. They first met on set and bonded over being neuroatypical. Aoife and Greg wrote for the PBS children’s show Pandemic Playhouse and are repped by Christophe Desorbay at Range Media Partners. Before moving to L.A., Aoife pursued her love of visual art and got her B.F.A. in Fashion Design at Pratt. Greg pursued playwriting in between getting a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Brown and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Once in L.A., Aoife studied screenwriting and honed her creative skills as a professional costume designer on everything from horror features to music videos for Meghan Trainor. While working as an immigration paralegal, Greg continued to write, with his screenplay 7 Days becoming a Nicholl and Austin semi-finalist.
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘24
Ashley (she/her), a writer-director with a physical disability, has directed for Disney+, Apple TV+, and Netflix. Her AFI DWW film Single won the 2020 SXSW Special Jury Recognition Award and is being adapted into an FX TV show. In 2023, Eakin was selected for the Netflix Created By Initiative and is writing a feature for the platform. She is committed to changing the portrayal of disabled people in media and is a founding member of the DGA's Disability Committee. She is represented by UTA and Artists First.
Contact: Website
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Bibi (they/them) is a poet and performance-maker whose work focuses on queerness, climate justice, and post-apocalyptic stories. They work as a producer on spoken word and immersive performances, and their creative work spans from poetry to games to theatre. They were shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award for their latest pamphlet, Kinsey Scale for the Emotionally Fragile Queer. Their first audio drama, queer urban horror Folxlore, was named #38 in The Atlantic’s top 50 podcasts of 2020. They recently received funding to write their first book about climate displacement, slow migration, and queer parenthood.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘22
Brett (he/him) is a Los Angeles-based actor, writer, and director from rural Nebraska. A former cast member of the 2016 CBS Diversity Showcase, Groundlings Sunday Company, and three-year UCB house sketch, he developed his half-hour comedy with Sony and wrote for the second season of Marvel's Loki. He's niche because he lives with a rare type of scoliosis and drives a PT Cruiser.
Contact: Website
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Chad (he/him) is a freelance children's media writer and podcast producer. He is focused on diverse representation of all kinds in his work, with a specific focus on queer, neurodiverse, and disabled communities. Chad co-founded the feminist fairytales podcast Girl Tales with Rebecca Cunningham, created the Mystery Recipe podcast for America's Test Kitchen Kids, and has since worked for Spotify, Neon Hum, and Disney. He won the 2023 Webby Award for Best Kids and Family Podcast Episode with “La Bestia” from Girl Tales, written by Jasmine Romero.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘23'
Charlie (he/him) and Chris (he/him) have written for film and television for ten years. They often center their stories on characters with disabilities, rooted in their own experiences with Cystic Fibrosis. They got their start after selling their series Flinch to USA Network, and have since developed both television and features with Warner Bros., Fox, and MGM, among others. In 2022, they won Best Comedy Pilot at the Austin Film Festival, and they recently wrote Radical, a drama about Yuri Kochiyama with Nina Yang Bongiovi and Lisa Ling producing. They are repped by Josh Adler at Circle of Confusion.
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Elevate Collective ‘23, ‘25
Cheryl (she/her) is a small-town girl with big-city dreams who dabbled in every job both in front of and behind the camera before becoming a bonafide scribe. As a physically disabled writer, she brings her unique perspective to narratives and loves to write about complicated women in messy situations. She recently worked as a co-producer on Amazon Freevee’s Beyond Black Beauty. Her works have been spotlighted by Toronto and Cannes International Film Festivals, and she's sharpened her skills as a participant in the Respectability Entertainment Lab, Stowe Story Lab, and TIFF Series Accelerator Lab.
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘22
David (he/him) is a neurodivergent writer, podcaster and musician from Canada, who likes to tell stories about loners and outcasts struggling to fit into systems as drama or comedy. David graduated from University of Toronto with a degree in Assyriology. After graduating, he studied improv at Second City and began his sketch and stand up career, performing around the continent. In 2013, David began his first forays into Hollywood, working with Reggie Watts, Nathan Fielder, Sarah Silverman and others, before eventually being hired for the inaugural writer’s room of the Late Late Show with James Corden. Following that, David worked with Justin Willman, co-creating the three-season Netflix show Magic for Humans. He is represented by David Meese at William Morris Endeavour and Olivia Gerke and Trevor Rotenberg at 3 Arts.
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Ella (she/her) is a multi-award winning writer, director, and producer whose body of work is an explosion of radically inclusive storytelling. She's the co-creator of Doctor Who: Redacted and the producer and director of Eliza: A Robot Story. She's currently directing multiple serialized audio dramas for Marvel Comics on the app “Marvel Move.” Ella is internationally renowned as the "Queen of Audio Fiction'' (The Guardian), and is a passionate advocate for independent podcasting, especially audio drama. She has written for a variety of beloved podcasts, including independent sitcom Wooden Overcoats and the first season of Doctor Who: Redacted.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘25
Erin Brown Thomas (she/her) is a diplopic, neurodivergent filmmaker whose writing explores unchecked ambition, social imbalances, and industrialized Christianity. A former editor, Thomas’ credits include the Elisabeth Moss and Ebon Moss-Bachrach-led Tokyo Project. She has also directed the shorts Subtext (Austin Film Festival, Cannes, AMPAV), Rekindled(Palm Springs ShortFest), and A Question of Service (HollyShorts winner). A Nicholl Semifinalist for The Body of Chris, her latest project, Chasers — a 31-minute single-continuous-shot pilot — world premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
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Elevate Collective ‘23, Visionary Fellowship ‘24
Filipe (he/him) is a writer and filmmaker living with OCD with a passion for character-driven, inclusive, and commercial stories. He has been featured on the annual Black List three consecutive times, on the Nicholl Fellowship twice, and was selected to participate in the Inevitable Foundation's Visionary Fellowship. Filipe is also a Black List Feature Lab alum, a two-time finalist of the Cannes Writers Residency, and the writer, producer, and director of several award-winning short films. Filipe is repped by Matt Rosen at Navigation Media Group.
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Elevate Collective ‘22
Gisselle (she/her) is a Cuban-American writer who grew up among the exile community in Miami. When she lost most of her hearing to a childhood vaccine reaction, her pediatrician advised her parents against teaching her sign language in favor of oralism and a mainstream education. Gisselle learned to navigate the hearing world by developing keen observational skills, which contributed to her accomplishments as a scientist, and later, as a writer. Gisselle has written for multiple network and streaming shows, most recently on NBC’s New Amsterdam, where her episode, “Give Me a Sign” shone a light on some of the language deprivation issues that denying deaf children sign language can cause.
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Elevate Collective ‘23
Hari (he/they) is a certified death doula, the bestselling author of Black Boy Out of Time, and the creator and former editor-in-chief of RaceBaitr. Their writing is informed by their identity as a Black queer born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Hindu and Muslim parents, and has been featured in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and HuffPo, among other publications. They write for the upcoming podcast Black History, For Real (Wondery), and were previously a staff writer on The Neighborhood (CBS), and a script consultant on David Makes Man (Own). They have placed in competitions including Screencraft, Filmmatic, and the Sundance Development Lab.
Contact: Website
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘24
Jamey (she/her), is a paraplegic TV writer, actor, and adaptive athlete from Seattle dedicated to using disability to offer new perspectives. She earned her first TV writing credit as a writer’s assistant on NBC’s Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector and sold two disability-led shows to Peacock and NBC in 2021. Jamey recently worked on Season 3 of Amazon’s Leverage: Redemption and serves as vice chair of the WGA's Disabled Writers Committee. She is represented by Bradley Glenn at Buchwald.
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Elevate Collective ‘22, Accelerate Fellowship 23
Jenn (she/her), originally from New Jersey and currently living in Los Angeles, is a writer and the travel blogger behind Sick Girl Travels. After moving to L.A., she began writing sketch comedy with Second City LA while working as an NBC Page. Together, Jenn and writing partner Kevin Bonani started their TV writing careers on FOX’s The War At Home and CBS’s Accidentally On Purpose. During this time, Jenn was diagnosed with a rare and painful connective tissue disorder called hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. The duo have spent the bulk of their 15-year writing career staffed on family sitcoms for Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, including Shake It Up, The Thundermans, KC Undercover, and The Barbarian and The Troll. Jenn and Kevin are repped by Rob Kim and Daniel Perry at Buchwald.
Contact: Website
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Jessie (she/her) is a podcast host and software engineer passionate about democratizing the tech industry. Jessie created her podcast Glowing in Tech to provide information and inspiration to all those pursuing a career or currently working in tech, and she’s determined to give those underserved and underrepresented in the industry a platform to share their achievements and create a community that allows for more career equity.
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘21
Kalen (she/her) is a writer and actor from the Pacific Northwest. She is bicultural and bilingual, also fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). She earned a Masters in Screenwriting from Leeds Beckett University (England) and a Certificate in Television Writing from UCLA Extension. Kalen worked as a tech consultant for an episode of CSI:NY and was part of the ASL Master team for Switched at Birth. She is drawn to writing dramedies, using entertainment to educate about unique perspectives, and wants to tell authentic stories that create opportunities for deaf and underrepresented minorities. Kalen has been awarded fellowships through Project Involve (Film Independent) and the Anderson Center. She is represented by Sean Barclay at Gersh, Steve Smith and Evan Lewis at Stagecoach Entertainment (literary), and Gail Williamson at KMR (theatrical).
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Elevate Collective ‘25
Katherine Beattie (she/her) grew up as a disabled skate rat in mid-90s suburban Los Angeles with her much taller (even when they're both standing) twin sister, it's no surprise that she now writes stories of outsiders and underdogs, usually through the lens of female friendships and sisterhood. Though she has a deep love of comedy, Katherine has spent most of her writing career on network procedurals including NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans. She is repped by Jennifer Good at Paradigm and Kim Stenton at Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger & Light.
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Visionary Fellowship ‘24
Katherine (she/her) is an Austin filmmaker and educator with low vision. She writes character-driven comedies and offbeat horror, mostly set in Texas, that explore complex social issues. Before becoming a screenwriter, she founded Conspire Theatre, a nonprofit that used theatre to work with women during and after incarceration. She wrote and directed the Audible Original SHAKY, a nine-episode comedy series debuting in 2025. Her co-written heist feature script SKRRRT!, with Gabriela Garcia Medina, was awarded the Athena List Disney Development Grant. She was a staff writer on Apple TV+’s Best Foot Forward and created the Snap Original series Kappa Crypto. She is an assistant professor practice at the University of Texas at Austin and is represented by Ava Jamshidi of Industry Entertainment.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘22
Keisha (she/her) is a disabled comedian, writer, and showrunner. At her core, she's a California neurotic with New York chill. Keisha has worked on Hulu's limited series Mike, Young Love, and Netflix's animated series Agent King, and is one of the co-creators and stars of Netflix's Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show. Her new short film, WHERE THE F*CK IS SHE?!, focuses on two estranged Black sisters who reconnect when they canvas the neighborhood looking for their mentally ill mother.
Contact: IMDB
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Elevate Collective ‘23
Kryzz (she/her) is a Queer, Afro-Latina, formerly undocumented writer-director from the Dominican Republic, who specializes in character-driven, grounded sci-fi and genre at large. Kryzz was on The Black List 2021, and has written on an HBO series and on 2K Games’ BioShock 4. Kryzz has been in programs like Netflix’s “Directors On The Rise,” NBC’s “Female Forward,” Ryan Murphy's "Half Initiative,” Joey Soloway's "Disruptors,” Sundance Institute, The Academy's Nicholl Fellowship, and the DGA, among others. Her work has screened at Academy Award, BAFTA, and Canadian Screen Award qualifying festivals. She's an Emerson alumna and is repped by CAA and Rain.
Contact: Website
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Lou (she/her) is a British-Ghanaian audio-maker, producer, and founder of Shade Podcast, who has carved out a space all her own in audio. Through image-focused interviews with curators, artists, writers, and activists, she's mined the intersection between race and art. In 2021, Lou tackled the most salient images of the Black Lives Matter uprisings; recognized for their impact by the British Podcast Awards. She has partnered with Bloomberg Connects, Hauser & Wirth, Tate Modern, and Frieze. Her first audio documentary Joy of Bundle recently aired on the BBC.
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Elevate Collective ‘23
Lydia (she/her) is a previously staffed writer and Stella Adler-trained actress, originally from Cleveland, Ohio. She writes comedies, dramedies and historical dramas, the latter of which placed in the 2021 ScreenCraft Pilot Competition, secured her place in the 2021 Black List/WIF Episodic Lab, and was a 2022 ATX pitch finalist. Possibly her villain origin story, Lydia attended an HBCU, joined Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., but somehow didn’t learn to play Spades. She’s lowkey into #cottagecore, highkey into libraries and ballet, and currently mentors for the Writers Guild Initiative workshops. Lydia lives with debilitating Myalgic Encephalomyelitis from long COVID.
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Elevate Collective ‘, Accelerate Fellowship ‘23
Marc (he/him) is a writer and comedian from Chicago, who, despite being visually impaired, once convinced someone to let him fly an airplane. Along with writing partner Alexandra Franklin, he is a producer on Showtime’s Dexter: Original Sin. Their writing spans comedy and drama, including Polly Pocket (Netflix), Abby’s (NBC), and Dexter: New Blood (Showtime), with their work on the latter being nominated for an HCA Award for best writing. They've also developed original projects with Disney, Sony/Counterbalance, and Fifth Season. Before moving to L.A., Marc toured the country performing sketch and improv. His videos for BuzzFeed, Funny or Die, and Honest Trailers have earned over 42 million views.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘24
Matilda (she/they) is an award-winning bionic playwright, screenwriter, and author of Nigerian heritage from London. They write thought-provoking narratives that explore themes of identity, belonging and empowerment through various mediums. Screen credits include BAFTA TV-nominated CripTales and Mo <3 Kyra, a short film produced by Film4 and 104 Films that debuted at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival. They also co-wrote an episode on Amazon Prime’s series Wilderness. A feature film they co-wrote was selected for the annual The Brit List. Select awards include a 2024 Olivier Award and Most Promising Playwright at the 2023 Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, as well as being named a 2023 BFI Flare x BAFTA mentee. They’re repped by Ikenna Obiekwe at Independent Talent Group.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘24
Melanie (she/her) specializes in brow-raising dramas and true stories. She combines her experience in politics, working for candidates including Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, with her unique perspective as a disabled woman to write socially-relevant stories with relatable leads. Melanie has been selected as an NBCU TV Writer’s Program Finalist and Austin Film Festival Semifinalist, and her scripts have been featured on Coverfly’s Red List, the Diverse Voices Official Selection, and over a dozen more. She also owns the options to The Domestic Diva, a New York Times-bestselling series of 17+ mystery novels, and The Girl You Lost, a hit thriller by Kathryn Croft.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘25
Michelle Asgarali (she/her) is drawn to ensemble narratives exploring the multi-faceted lives of disabled characters. With a background as a creative producer and showrunner for character-driven docuseries like AMI’s Breaking Character and CBC’s Push, she now works in scripted storytelling, with a focus on children, youth and comedy genres. Recent projects include Lopii Productions’ children's educational series Bestest Day for My Bestest Friend and Dream It to Be It!, and her narrative debut showrunning The Squeaky Wheel: Canada, which garnered a Canadian Screen Award nomination.
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘22, Visionary Fellowship ‘24
Monica (she/her) is a neurodivergent, Puerto Rican screenwriter who hails from suburban California. After receiving her B.A. in political science, she relocated to Washington, D.C. where she spent four years as a political activist working in the U.S. Department of State and for various nonprofits and think tanks. Disillusioned by the 2016 election, she moved to L.A. and received her MFA in Writing for Screen and Television from USC. Her stylistic character dramas have earned her recognition as the 2021 JHRTS Feature Drama Winner, a finalist in the Moving Picture Institute’s Short Film Lab, and a runner-up for the 2022 Hollywood Radio and TV Society Foundation Fellowship. She is also a semi-finalist in the 2023 Women in Film x Black List Episodic Lab. Monica currently has her first hour-long pilot in development and is co-writing an upcoming narrative podcast. She’s repped by RBEL Agency and Elevate.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘24
Natalia (she/her) is a playwright, TV writer-producer, and creative writing professor, whose plays have been produced in Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. She has written TV episodes for Dear White People on Netflix, Julia on Max, and Reasonable Doubt on Hulu. Natalia was a 2021 Artist in Residence and recipient of the Film Focus Fellowship at Serenbe Institute. She received the American Playwriting Foundation's 2019 "Relentless Award" and an honorable mention for Lawnpeople, a political drama dealing with immigration, identity, and motherhood. She is repped by Daniel Vang and Zack Waxenberg at 3Arts.
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Elevate Collective ‘23
Obiageli (she/her) grew up in Nigeria and worked on Wall Street before transitioning into screenwriting. Obiageli writes about outsiders in harrowing situations. In 2019, she received her MFA from USC. Obiageli’s scripts have since garnered her a Humanitas New Voices Award, a BAFTA Newcomers Fellowship, and a Paramount Writers Mentoring Program Fellowship. In 2020, Obiageli worked at Spotify writing true crime podcasts. She was then hired as a staff writer on Guilty Party at Paramount+, as an executive story editor on Motorheads at Amazon. Currently, Obiageli is a co-producer on All American at The CW.
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Elevate Collective ‘23
Roma’s (she/her) years of existence as a quadruple-pronged diversity hire left her fascinated by how systems of oppression leave marginalized people so desperate to prove themselves that they miss out on forming real connections with others, and often explores that through comedy in her work. Since graduating into the pandemic with a screenwriting BFA, she's participated in fellowships like the Disruptors Fellowship, Hillman Grad Mentorship Lab, and Respectability's Summer Entertainment Lab, as well as working in children's cartoons, most recently as an associate writer at Disney.
Contact: Website
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘22
Sam Dunnewold (he/him) is a writer of goofy and dark comedy from small-town Minnesota. Sam has no colon, having had it surgically removed due to Crohn’s disease. His work is often high-concept, usually dark, and always nerdy. He was a finalist for the Austin Television Festival’s pitch contest with his script The Dumps. Sam began a career in digital media editing videos and podcasts, working at The Onion (2016 Election Special, A Very Fatal Murder) where he also helped unionize the company. After leaving The Onion, Sam has continued cutting fiction podcasts for companies like Team Coco (Self Center) and Funny or Die (The Last Degree of Kevin Bacon). He received his film degree from Carleton College and has written nearly a dozen short films which have played at midwestern festivals. He is represented by Brandon Stein at Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Contact: Website
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Sara (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based writer and audio producer from Boulder, Colorado. Recently, she wrote and produced Pushkin Industries’ McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, and she has helped make podcasts on topics ranging from poetry to AI ethics to the cognitive science of change. Her work often explores cultural histories, and she is interested in how narratives shape our relationships with nonhuman environments. She is a 2021 graduate of Wesleyan University, where she studied interdisciplinary humanities, and a current scholar in the New School of the Anthropocene.
Contact: Website
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Elevate for Podcasters ‘23
Said (they/them) and Shane (they/them) (also known as They & Them) are a disabled, nonbinary musical theatre and audio drama writing team. They tell stories that are inclusive of and accessible to underrepresented communities. They are currently developing their flagship project, The Reality Shaper, a D&D-inspired fantasy musical podcast. Their accomplishments include being selected for the BMI Musical Theatre Writers Workshop and the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project; being finalists in the 2022 Write Out Loud songwriting competition; receiving the 2022 Danny Award for Original Song; and winning the 48th Annual Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival in 2023.
Contact: Website (Sair), Website (Shane)
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘21
Shaina (she/her) is a writer and director whose style is quirky, bold and unapologetic. She grew up in the suburb of Elk Grove, California, where she stood out as a young Indian girl in a wheelchair. She made her first film at Sacramento State University, attaching a camera to her wheelchair and filming her experiences. Shaina was a pandemic graduate of USC’s Film and TV Production program and was a Netflix Animation Apprentice and writer on the series Boons and Curses. She is a 2020 Academy Gold Rising Alumni, where she was named Valedictorian, and the 2020 winter recipient of the SF Film Rainin Grant for her feature film Agg, which she will direct. Her films have screened at Slamdance, Superfest, ReelAbilities LA, and Easterseals. She writes both film and TV, and is represented by Jeff Portnoy at Bellevue Productions.
Contact: Website
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘21
A cum laude graduate of Princeton University, UC Berkeley, Stanford Law School, and UCLA Extension, Shani (she/her) began her career as a writer on Netflix’s Sweet Magnolias. Her produced credits include The Bold Type (Freeform/Hulu) and Kingdom Business (BET/BET+), and was a co-producer on Showtime/Paramount+’s Yield. Prior to becoming a full-time screenwriter, she was the first black female head executive in Dolby's history. Shani's J.D. is one of her greatest strengths; her disability from MS is another. A third is her family roots: the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant, she grew up in a small home in the Bronx with nine other people. Her writing awards include NBC’s TV Writers Program (2019), the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (2002), and the International Radio and Television Society (2002). She’s represented by Michael Kolodny at Kaplan Stahler.
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Elevate Collective ‘24
Shea (he/him) is an Iranian-American, LGBTQ+ writer-producer and person who stutters. He’s also a four-time honoree of Franklin Leonard's annual Black List and was recently re-elected for a second term as co-chair of the WGA’s Disabled Writers Committee. He has written features for Will Smith and Overbrook Entertainment, Tooley Entertainment, AGC Studios, and Universal Studios. He is an executive producer on NatGeo's Origins and most recently staffed on World of Marvels on Max. Mirzai is repped by Zero Gravity Management and Brecheen Feldman Breimer Silver & Thompson, LLP.
Contact: Website
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Elevate Collective ‘22, Accelerate Fellowship ‘23
Born in Texas and raised in New Mexico, Sheridan (he/him) is a Korean-American writer and director based in Los Angeles. O’Donnell has a desire to tell character-driven narratives exploring family, identity, and human connection through a unique fusion of wit, language, and poetic, cinematic imagery. His directorial debut, Little Brother, starring JK Simmons, Daniel Diemer, and Philip Ettinger, took home the Audience Award at the 2023 Atlanta Film Festival. As a follow-up to his Emmy Award-winning film Rising Phoenix, O’Donnell is currently directing a new feature-length documentary, Rising Phoenix: A New Revolution, which is produced in partnership with Harder Than You Think and P&G Studios and is co-produced by Ventureland. O’Donnell is represented by CAA, Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment, and Whalar Talent.
Contact: Website
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘24
A Bronx-born writer, Simone (she/her) is a proud mom who uses her writing to explore the complexities of human nature and help audiences connect with the universal humanity of people on screen. An alum of Sundance Institute’s Knight Fellowship Program and Talent Forum, Hawthorne was a finalist in Shore Scripts 2020 TV Pilot Contest, and a quarterfinalist in the 2020 ScreenCraft Drama Competition. Her credits include Ambitions, Untold Stories of Black Wall Street, and The Young and the Restless, for which she won a Daytime Emmy. She is represented by Jim Sarnoff at The Sarnoff Company.
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Accelerate Fellowship ‘25
Zach (he/him) is a comedian, author, and content creator with cerebral palsy. His writing on comedy series like ABC’s Speechless and Apple TV+’s Best Foot Forward has brought people together through meaningful silliness. Both shows were honored with Sentinel Awards for Outstanding Depictions of Characters with Disabilities. Josh (he/him) is a disabled infantry combat veteran who brings fresh takes to genre series like sci-fi drama Day 5 (El Rey) and historical western Elkhorn (INSP). Head writer of the PBS mental health series How Are We Today?, Josh recently made his feature directorial debut with Pickleheads, a pickleball mockumentary that highlights the inclusivity of the sport.
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Elevate Collective ‘23, Visionary Fellowship ‘24
Zayre (they/them) was born in Panama and grew up in Brooklyn. They received two MFA's from NYU. After participating in the NHMC Television Writers’ Workshop, Zayre went on to work as Creative Director at Story House productions, where they consulted on the Netflix Original Series El Chapo, and then went on to Create and EP the Netflix Original Series Tijuana. Most recently, Zayre has completed work on the David Jenkins and Taika Waititi series Our Flag Means Death.