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5 Screenwriting Takeaways: ‘Amaraica’ shows truth of undocumented life

September 10, 2021

Amaraica is the combination of two words: Amara and America. It’s no coincidence then that the film titled Amaraica puts the pregnancy and birth of a little girl named Amara at the core of the narrative. Amaraica focuses on a single story within the ...

5 Screenwriting Takeaways: 'The Chair' embraces difficult conversations and that's what makes it great

September 7, 2021

The Chair is the most binge-worthy show in recent memory. I sat down and watched it all in one sitting, in large part thanks to Sandra Oh’s Ji-Yoon Kim, the first woman of color to become chair of the English department at a fictional, but clearly st...

5 Screenwriting Takeaways: 'Reservation Dogs' is an engrossing dramedy of long-overdue firsts

August 31, 2021

Reservation Dogs is a historic, unique and highly watchable show. It’s the first series in U.S. television history with an all-Native writers' room and a Native showrunner. It’s a genuine look at young lives lived on Native territory with the simulta...

5 Screenwriting Takeaways: ‘The Defeated’ looks at the chaos of a surrendered nation

August 27, 2021

The year is 1946. The most destructive war in history has concluded and Berlin, the epicenter of the Third Reich, lays in ruin. There are countless stories of men and women sacrificing their time, freedoms and lives to help save the world from tyrann...

5 Screenwriting Takeaways: ‘Beckett’ runs in political thriller

August 20, 2021

Beckett and April are American tourists enjoying a romantic vacation in Greece when a tragic car accident turns this relatively tame trip into a Hitchcockian nightmare. Alone, Beckett must navigate the unfamiliar territory as he tries to make it to t...

Afro Horror: Writing from the headlines

July 9, 2021

A global pandemic, a turbulent election season, and numerous celebrity scandals; oh my! Being a living human being in 2021 has been a roller coaster of shock and awe. If you're reading this, you’ve survived a deadly contagious virus, only to have ano...

Afro Horror: Third acts are hard

June 11, 2021

Have you ever watched a horror film that has an exceptional first act, then an okay second act, until you hit the third, awful act? Of course you have. We all have. Why? Because third acts are hard!

5 Screenwriting Takeaways From Hulu's 'Pen 15'

September 23, 2020

Sometimes the state of the world may make adults think we have a monopoly on existential dread, but Pen15 is here to remind us that junior high schoolers have it pretty bad, too. The show's big hook—two women staring down middle age yet effortlessly ...

All The Write Moves: 'Veronica Mars'

August 12, 2019

By this point, it’s not bold to describe Veronica Mars as one of Hollywood’s most indestructible franchises. After debuting as a regular series on UPN, where it ran from 2004 to 2005, the show transitioned to the CW for the 2006-2007 season, then ret...