6th Annual Native American TV Writers Lab – Selections Announced

NATIVE AMERICAN PARTICIPANTS SELECTED FOR THE 6TH ANNUAL NATIVE AMERICAN TV WRITERS LAB

Sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, A+E Networks, the Cherokee Nation Film Office, Kung Fu Monkey Productions, Snowpants Productions, Decolonizing Wealth Project, Cast & Crew, Final Draft, Media Services and Netflix.

The Native American Media Alliance, in partnership with the LA SKINS FEST, is thrilled to announce the selections of the NATIVE AMERICAN TV WRITERS LAB fellows for 2021. This year’s lab is virtual taking place April 19th through May 23rd, 2021.

“We live in an incredibly exciting time – we are finally seeing television shows about Native American people, by Native people, with Native artists on both sides of the camera.” Stated William Jehu Garroutte (Cherokee Nation); Executive Producer, Dark Horse (ABC); Director of Education, Native American Media Alliance. “As an alumni of the first Native American TV Writers Lab, I am excited to see this initiative continue to bolster our community, to empower our writers and storytellers. Every year, this program builds on an incredible community of talented artists. I look forward to the new and groundbreaking projects the 2021 cohort has to offer.”

Founded in 2016, the NATIVE AMERICAN TV WRITERS LAB is an intensive TV scriptwriters workshop that prepares Native Americans for writing careers at major television networks. Fellows take part in a five week curriculum curated by seasoned writing executives. The lab consist of daily workshops, seminars and one-on-one mentoring to help each writer develop and complete a pilot in five weeks and hone skills to prepare the writers to move into staff writing jobs. This year’s lab is instructed by writer Cari Daly.

The 9 participants are:

Alexander Nystrom

Glenís Hunter

Diego Moreno

Andrina Smith

Brian Young

Shelby Ramirez

JohnTom Knight

Liz Stephens

Jeremy Charles

At the end of the program, each participant will have completed an original television script and will take creative meetings with our corporate partners.

The NATIVE AMERICAN TV WRITERS LAB was created to expand the amount of Native Americans working behind the camera, as a way to increase fair and accurate portrayals of Native Americans on television. Native Americans continue to maintain the lowest representation of writers on current television series.

The 2021 Native American TV Writers Lab is sponsored by Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Cherokee Nation Film Office, Kung Fu Monkey Productions, Snowpants Productions and Decolonizing Wealth.

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