2nd Annual Native American Writers Room

The 2nd Annual Native American Writers Room announces selections for the new Native American television series. This year’s room will develop an historical drama based on real events and buried atrocities within Native American communities. This is a project of the Barcid Foundation with the advanced goal of giving emerging Native American writers the opportunity to work in an all Native American writers room. The Barcid Foundation has been awarded a grant from Pop Culture Collaborative and the Cherokee Nation Film Office to execute the project and create a new platform for underserved writers.

Selections for the 2nd Annual Native American Writers Room:

William Jehu Garroutte

Shelley Dennis

Tom Hanada 

Doane Tulugaq Avery

“We are proud of this year’s selections and look forward to breaking new ground in this year’s writers room. Every year, we strive to offer new opportunities to our community and a new perspective of our people. Pop Culture Collaborative and the Cherokee Nation Film Office has been instrumental in creating this opportunity and we look forward to executing this incredible endeavor.” – Patricia Gomes, Executive Director

The Barcid Foundation is a nonprofit media arts organization founded by writer-producer Ian Skorodin to foster understanding of the culture, traditions, and issues of Native Americans. With the goal of creating a genuine and mutually beneficial relationship between the Native American community and the entertainment industry, Barcid offers Native writers the training, resources, and access necessary to forge relationships and pursue a career in the entertainment industry. This includes introductions to creative executives, diversity departments, and inclusion initiatives that can create opportunity for Native artists.

This grant provides project support for the development of an experimental Native American Writers Room. This project seeks to address the lack of genuine Native American representation in television and overall media. Building on the success of the 2019 room, we have launched this opportunity for alumni of Barcid’s writing programs to inspire and encourage emerging writers, create an episodic television series and provide experience in a creative process anchored by an all-Native writers room.

The Native American Writers Room is supported by: