Your Impact

The first half of 2024 has flown by here at the Foundation! Already we’ve launched a brand-new program, brought back a fan-favorite event, and shared treasures from the library and archive with friends on the east coast, just to name a few highlights. We’ve been busy doing what we do best: preserving and promoting the history and craft of screenwriting.

This work is only possible because of donors like you, so THANK YOU for supporting WGF! As a special thanks, here’s a mid-year update on how we’ve put your generosity into action so far in 2024. 

PROGRAMS

Introducing…WGF’s Veterans Fellowship!

Since 2010, the Writers Guild Foundation has supported emerging writers from military backgrounds through the Veterans Writing Project. Today, the program is one of the strongest of its kind.

However, drastic changes in the industry over the last decade have made breaking in as a professional screenwriter more challenging than ever. To better serve our growing pool of talented alumni working to break into the industry, in February WGF launched the Veterans Fellowship.

The fellowship’s mission is to provide educational resources, professional guidance, and career-building opportunities for Veterans Writing Project alumni who are on the threshold of breaking into the industry. Over the course of eight weeks, our fellows polished scripts with the support of their mentors and participated in a variety of mock staffing meetings, general meetings, and writers’ rooms.

Interested in hiring one of our fellows? Check out our talent portal here.

Veterans Writing Project

On January 27th, we hosted the first ever Midterm Retreat to mark the mid-point of the 2023-24 program. The in-person event featured panels and interactive workshops tailored around the craft and business of writing for the screen. Panels and workshops included:

For the second half of the 2023-24 program’s monthly meetings section, panels focused on pitching and the business of screenwriting. Then, on April 30 and May 1, we hosted back-to-back Pitch Nights. 49 graduates pitched their projects to showrunners, producers, development executives, agents, managers, and other industry professionals.

Despite facing significant industry-wide obstacles, alumni have continued to build their portfolios and make meaningful connections. We’re proud to share a few examples of their recent successes below:

• Sati Kaur was hired as the Story Editor for Amazon’s The Bondsman.

• Showrunner John Hoberg hired Addison Blu and Kat Castaneda as a consultant and writers’ assistant, respectively.

• Melissa Ritz was hired as a Writers’ Assistant on The Corps.

• Jason Inman was promoted to staff writer on Craig Sweeny’s show Watson on CBS.

• Alum Josh Flanagan co-created a show with his former mentor John Rice. Jay Roach is attached to direct.

• Tracy Thompson was hired as a Story Producer at TV One.

• Three alumni recently graduated from The Academy Career Advancement Initiative’s Story Analyst Workshop, a free introductory workshop hosted by the Nicholl Fellowship where participants emerge with coverage samples that they can use to apply for jobs doing coverage for production companies, contests, script coverage services, and agents and managers in the film industry.

On June 1 and 2, we welcomed 46 new participants to the 2024-25 cycle of the Veterans Writing Project at the kickoff Weekend Retreat. Held at the Writers Guild of America, West headquarters, participants met their mentors to discuss story ideas and establish the premise of the script they will develop through the program.

The Basic Course portion of the program recently began in June and will run through the end of July.

Writers’ Access Support Staff Training Program

Earlier this year, we made the difficult decision to adjust the Writers’ Access Support Staff Training Program timeline to adapt to the current state of the industry. The application period for the 2024 program has been postponed for five months, now opening August 1. The 12-week course will begin in January 2025.

In the meantime, WGF hosted a mixer and potluck for WASSTP graduates in late February. In April, alumni attended a resilience-building workshop led by Jim Arnoff.  

WASSTP grads continue to find success. Recent achievements include:

• WASSTP grads Xuan Mai and Yeon Jin Lee were both hired as Showrunner’s Assistants for LaToya Morgan’s (Duster) and Craig Sweeny (Watson), respectively

• Jon-Alexander Genson was hired as a Writers’ Assistant on FBI: Most Wanted and Shanice Williamson was hired as a Writers’ Assistant on All the Queen’s Men

• Glen Mazzara hired two WASSTP alums, Jenna Bosco as a Writers’ Assistant and Catherine Oyster as a Script Coordinator for his upcoming Netflix show, Extraction

• WASSTP alumni Gia King and Daniela Labi officially joined the WGA as Current members!

Interested in hiring one of our Writers’ Access alumni? Check out our talent portal here.

Visiting Writers

The Visiting Writers Program has facilitated five educational discussions between WGA writers and classrooms across the country so far in 2024:

• Halley Feiffer (American Horror Story) spoke with students at Southern Oregon University.

• Guillermo Arriaga (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) visited students at the Puerto Rico Film Commission’s The Creative Hub.

• First Channel Media Academy in Armenia hosted two different speaker sessions: one with Joseph Mwamba (Splinter Cell) and one with Christopher Markus (Avengers: Endgame).

• Writers’ Access program instructors Debbie Ezer (Based On A True Story, The Good Doctor) and Clay Lapari (WonderMan, iCarly) hosted an info session for students at CSU Long Beach.

Volunteer and Mentorship

WGF continues to partner with other organizations to support literacy and writing programming as part of our Volunteer and Mentorship Program. Active partners in 2024 include:

EVENTS

Virtual Events

So far in 2024, we’ve hosted ten virtual events. Events with recordings on our YouTube channel include: 

Altogether, over 5,000 people RSVPed to attend our virtual events live, and the recordings of our 2024 events have more than 8,000 views on our YouTube channel (as of the time of this report). Across our entire YouTube channel, recordings gained more than 102,000 views!

In-Person Events

We also hosted four in-person events so far this year:

Beyond Words 2024 - Hosted at the Writers Guild Theater in February, this annual event highlighted the 2024 Writers Guild Award screenplay nominees with back-to-back Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay panels. Beyond Words 2024 was a sold-out show with 468 tickets reserved. Listen to the audio recording here.

Turning Your Passion Into A Profession: A Conversation with Felicia Day - A special afternoon where multi-hyphenate Felicia Day shared her insight with Veterans Writing Project alumni and our audience of emerging writers on finding their voice as an artist, forging a path in the entertainment industry, and transforming creativity into a viable profession.

WGF x Business of Creating present Pitching Your Project: A Practical Guide to Success - In partnership with the Business of Creating Institute, we hosted a panel and Q&A with seasoned entertainment professionals all about pitching, including how to create a successful and personalized pitch deck, pitching original content vs. adaptations, what helps and what harms a pitch, pitching etiquette, and more.

Write-A-Thon: The Reboot! - The first WGF write-a-thon since 2019, more than 70 writers joined us in the Shavelson-Webb Library for a six-hour writing sprint with library staff on hand to help with script requests and a community of writers providing motivation and collaboration.

Altogether more than 780 people RSVPed for these in-person events.

Goodbye and Hello!

Earlier this year, we said goodbye to our former Director of Events and Communications, Enid Portuguez. Over her eight and a half years at the Foundation, Enid helped transform our event programming into what it is today, introducing popular event series like Showrunner Sessions and Inside the Writers Room. We’ll miss you, Enid, and wish you best of luck at your new job!

After Enid’s departure, we welcomed Dustin Fleischmann as our new Director of Events and Communications. Dustin previously served as WGF’s Events & Operations Coordinator from 2018 to 2020 and is now back working WGF events in his new role. He’s already hit the ground running, bringing back popular events like the Write-a-Thon. We can’t wait to see what he does next!

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE

Collections

So far in 2024, patrons made more than 2,297 appointments to visit to the Library and requested to read more than 1,063 scripts. The most popular Library reads lately are:

We’ve added 364 items to the Library catalog so far in 2024. New scripts in the library include Black Cake, Carol & The End of the World, The Changeling, Gen V, Survival of the Thickest, True Detective s.4, Anyone But You.

In the Archive, we’ve processed five collections totaling 28 boxes of material so far this year. These collections include the papers of Gabrielle Upton, a freelance TV and soap writer who worked from the 1950s to the 1980s; a collection of materials from George Sunga related to his work as a producer, production executive, and advocate for diversity within the industry; and collections from Dick Chevillat, a writer for radio and early TV, Donald E. Stewart, a thriller and action feature writer, and Lee Sheldon, a TV writer and game designer.

Our library team also started a big solicitation project asking for donations of outlines, note cards, treatments, pitch documents, and other script development materials. These items are essential to emerging writers learning the process of screenwriting. Donated materials include:

Interested in donating scripts, development materials, or archival ephemera? Please send us an email!

Events and Outreach

All statistics are from January 1, 2024 to June 30, 2024. To see past impact reports, click the links below: