Past fellows

Meet our 2021 fellows

This ultra-talented group of writers received top scores from our judges and excelled during the interview process. They attended a three-week intensive course with sessions led by professionals in the business. At the end of the accelerator, the fellows pitched to over 25 studios and production companie for a total of 64 pitch meetings. 75% of the pitches ended with a request to read the complete script. Directly following the accelerator, two fellows landed jobs in the writers room, two fellows were taken on as mentors by producers they pitches to and one fellow obtained a manager.

Danielle Nicki has focused on the craft of screenwriting for nearly a decade and enjoys creating flawed women of color protagonists with interesting and diverse life experiences not often seen on screen. She is a Nicholl Fellowship quarterfinalist, an Austin Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival Finalist, and was recently named one of International Screenwriters Association’s Top 25 Writers to Watch in 2021.	Joanne Thomson is an actor, writer and director from Glasgow, Scotland. As a Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduate and a BAFTA LA Newcomer, she has worked across BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated series with BBC, Sony, Amazon and Netflix and has directed internationally award-winning theater. Her writing has placed in several Screencraft competitions as well as making the BBC Writer’s Room Top 2%. Her most recent film, which she will also co-direct, is currently shortlisted for BFI funding.	Kate Torgovnick May is a television writer who’s fascinated by people and the things that make them tick. She’s drawn to unexplored female worlds — the staff lounge of a fertility clinic, the sugar baby conference circuit. A staff writer on “NCIS” and consulting producer on The CW’s “Hellcats” — and a former journalist who worked for JANE Magazine, The New York Times and TED Talks — Kate's work is grounded in research and a desire to understand people.
Kenyetta Raelyn is an award-winning LA-based screenwriter. Obsessed with the Gilded Age and early American industrial tycoons, she writes vividly about capitalism, wealth and privilege and their intersection with race and class. Last year, she was a participant in the Blacklist/Women in Film Episodic Lab and landed in the top 10% of the Nicholl Competition. In 2019, Kenyetta was a part of Meryl Streep’s The Writers Lab NYC and the ScreenCraft Drama Feature Competition winner.	Ramou is a writer in Los Angeles. She created, wrote, and starred in the web series “Brunch,” about two Black women pondering their neuroses over eggs and mimosas. She has written several personal narrative essays, two Glamour magazine cover stories, and one creepy short story about a missing Midwest teen. She has a background in indigent criminal defense and is passionate about telling the stories of dynamic, complicated, and often messy women.	Spade Robinson is an award-winning writer and director with experience that spans feature film, documentary, television, commercial and theater. Robinson is a master's alumnus of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she emphasized writing and directing. Spade has directed several short films and written a host of television pilots and feature screenplays. She has twice been a finalist for the Sundance Episodic Lab, and she’s been a finalist for Film Independent Episodic Lab and AFI’s Directing
Samantha Wilson was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. After graduating from DePaul University with a degree in screenwriting and photography, she moved to Los Angeles, California. Her time as an assistant in the film and television industry morphed into a career as a script reader and story analyst, working for high-profile screenwriting contests and a major studio. She enjoys writing character-driven dark comedy, dramedy, and drama, often with a grounded, genre twist.	Vivian Kerr is an actor, writer, producer, and director. In 2020, she was a finalist in Sony Pictures TV's Rising Storytellers Search with her pilot “Five Points,” about the female-led gangs of 19th-century New York, which is also in the 2021 Stowe Story Lab. Her feature debut, “SCRAP,” is currently in post-production. The script was a Top 10 finalist in Final Draft's Big Break. It stars Anthony Rapp and Lana Parrilla and will premiere in 2022.