Lab US-2016

2016

Our second annual Writers Lab retreat took place in the Connecticut River Valley, from Thursday, September 22th, through Sunday, September 25th, 2016.

Connecticut River Valley

For our second year, collaborator The Writers Guild of America, East again generously hosted a celebration for the 8 mentors and 12 writers (below) who came together in New York City the evening before the Lab. Early on Thursday morning, the group traveled together to the Guest House Retreat Center in Chester, CT. In this private, serene environment away from day-to-day pressures and distractions, writers had the opportunity to take their work to the next level.

The heart of the Lab is a combination of script development and community building. During bright, late summer days and cool, early fall evenings, the participants and mentors met in various configurations indoors and outdoors. One-on-one script meetings with the mentors were interspersed with panel discussions, small group discussions, and conversations over cocktails and throughout meals.

Each writer met with two mentors separately and listened, discussed, queried, and learned. The panels and small groups focused on topics ranging from analyzing strong openings, to preparing for general and pitch meetings, to the business of production.

The 2016 writers

Carol CarpenterMelody CooperMeredith DePaoloNancy DuffKate EricksonTina Field HoweChristina HulenChristine Toy JohnsonNanci Katz–EllisLeslie LongworthBarbara NunbergStephanie Stanley
2016 lab participantCarol Carpenter
THE GUADALUPE On a hot August night, gunmen surround a remote American farmhouse near the Mexican border – but who are they, why are they here, and can the family survive the night?
2016 lab participantMelody Cooper
THE SOUND OF DARKNESS A blind Afro Cuban musician and a deaf Black American sculptor are haunted by a woman only they can see and hear, who leads them to help a missing girl and take on an epic fight against an evil legacy of racial violence.
2016 lab participantMeredith DePaolo
DEVIL’S EYE In the days leading up to the War of 1812, a Kentucky mining team toiling inside the world’s largest cave complex discovers the body of a pre-Columbian man. Now they’re facing a threat far greater than war.
2016 lab participantNancy Duff
DEAD DROP Sixteen year-old Scout Sawyer who thinks she’s been living in witness protection, finds out her dad’s really a spy. When he goes missing, she finds herself recruited into a special program for the children of secret agents.
2016 lab participantKate Erickson
ROLL WITH IT When self-centered journalist Aurora Fetter is called home to settle her mother’s hoarder estate, she finds herself saddled with more than she expected: a basement full of marijuana plants, a roster of clients demanding their pot deliveries, and an eccentric brother unable to fend for himself.
2016 lab participantTina Field Howe
MINDSTRIKE In 2095, a battle drone kills super-hacker Salina Sanchez’s best friend. When she breaks into top-secret code to learn who was behind the attack, she ends up in a battle for her life against the unscrupulous Vice President. (In pre-production)
2016 lab participantChristina Hulen
A GENTLEMAN OF GOOD HOPE At the turn of the 19th century, a controversial but brilliant British military surgeon must battle detractors who would subvert his pioneering reforms, while maintaining a career-ending secret: He is a woman.
2016 lab participantChristine Toy Johnson
JUMPING THE THIRD RAIL Kelly Chao, a 16-year old native New Yorker who found her place in the world through competitive gymnastics, lost it when her father and coach died trying to protect her, and wonders if she can find it again making subway art with some unlikely new friends on the A train.
2016 lab participantNanci Katz–Ellis
BLINK A high school freshman yearning for independence in early 80’s Brooklyn learns what it really means to grow up when her parents are forced to leave her and her siblings to fend for themselves, and it’s nothing like she expected.
2016 lab participantLeslie Longworth
ONE BAD ASTRONAUT A young, unapologetically reckless rock n’roll legend gets a shot at redemption for a decade of bad behavior when he returns home to deal with a paternity suit and falls for the only woman on the planet who’s never heard of him.
2016 lab participantBarbara Nunberg
WILLFUL BLINDNESS An ambitious woman’s meteoric rise from secretary to editor of Britain’s largest tabloid newspaper catapults her to the top of the country’s power elite. When she authorizes the phone hacking of a teenage murder victim, she becomes entangled in a web of intrigue that could destroy the life she’s created.
2016 lab participantStephanie Stanley
THE RADICAL Initially a shy, powerless woman in the shadow of her philandering husband, Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the most influential women of the 20th Century, embarks on a turbulent journey to find her own voice and ends up shaping key social reforms we now take for granted.

As TWL’s reputation grows, so does interest in my projects. TWL is not just one event, but a community of writers who work hard and are serious about succeeding.  

Tina Field Howe
TWL US 2016

The 2016 mentors

Jessica Bendiger
Susan Cartsonis
Lisa Cortes
Amy Fox

Caroline Kaplan
Mary Jane Skalski
Kirstin Smith
Pat Verducci

Industry Insights

The annual Celluloid Ceiling study found that, from 1998 to 2019, the percentage of women writers employed in the film industry increased just 6%.

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