Writer Bios

Jay has been a working writer, producer and actor in Los Angeles since 2006. He’s written on staff for game shows like Master Minds, America Says, and Idiotest, and in 2021 launched the original comedy sketch podcast Fetch-A-Sketch, developed in Lab Twenty6. Producer credits include David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE and numerous commercials, shorts & music videos. As an actor, he’s appeared in or been the voice of dozens of commercial campaigns, along with several film, TV and video game projects, and is an Audie-Award winning narrator of over 40 audiobooks. Jay was also taught to be way more humble than the above paragraph might suggest, and his semi-rural Wisconsin upbringing takes exception to the vast majority of it. After all, this is the same person who once got arrested for driving a car through a cornfield. Who does that? He’s also fallen out of multiple trees.

Stephanie Bast was abandoned in Korea, adopted by Italians and raised in a town so small and white, someone asked: “How are you gonna understand her when she starts speaking?” Fiercely loved and protected, she was taught to fear “the other” while knowing “the other” was herself. She started to write comedy to heal a wound. Now she writes to heal others, creating characters who think they’re not enough, desperate to prove they’re worthy of being saved. 

Stephanie lives in Los Angeles and is currently ISA’s Story Farm fellow, Roadmap’s Diversity Fellow, studied at UCLA extension and placed as a Finalist for Austin Film Festival, Final Draft’s Big Break, CineStory, PAGE  and The Writers Lab winner. A Broadway and TV/Film actress in the time when presenting as Asian was a detriment, she has turned the pain of her race into a super power. 

Stephanie writes for everyone who’s adopted. She writes for everyone who hates looking in the mirror. She writes for her children, so they may always love their eyes. 

In a pinch, Stephanie can perform a reverse vasectomy. 

Raised in Seattle, Elisabeth Dale spent 25 years as a stay-at-home mom, corporate wife, and community volunteer. In her late 40s, Elisabeth returned to her first love: writing. A first humorous essay led to the publication of her book, bOObs: A Guide to Your Girls, named a Library Journal best consumer health book. This led to media appearances and paid speaking engagements with women's groups, schools, and professional associations.

Elisabeth moved to Los Angeles in 2011, launching TheBreastLife.com, a website dedicated to women's body image and health. Her second book, The Breast Life Guide to The Bra Zone, made her a featured expert on podcasts and in online and print publications.

Over the last decade, Elisabeth has performed storytelling and stand-up comedy shows at local and regional venues and on comedic podcasts. She has completed several pilots, features, and a short film script and has been a Women in Film member since 2019.

Mary Dwyer is a writer, producer and civic technologist based in Los Angeles. She produced the short films The Lonely Dog (2024) and The Virgin Jamie (2020), as well as the TikTok series Mountain Murder Tapes (2022). Mary has published writing with the Mayor’s Office of Los Angeles, Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition and Women You Should Know. She studied engineering at The Cooper Union and public policy at University of Pennsylvania. Mary was born and raised in New Jersey.

Stephen Gregg’s play, This is a Test, helped define a genre of one-acts when it appeared in 1988, and it continues to be one of the most-produced one-acts in the country. His plays Crush, Ghostlight and Trap have all appeared on the main stage of International Thespian Festival. He’s written screenplays for Dreamworks, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures and Henson. Awards include MacDowell Fellowship, Inge Fellowship, Educational Theatre Association’s Founders Award, Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Heideman Award for Best 10-minute play and the Chesterfield Film Fellowship.

Caroline Hoover is a film and TV writer from Culver City, CA. Her work has been recognized by the Nicholl Fellowship, the Austin Film Festival, and Stowe Story Labs, among others. She holds an MFA in Writing for Film and Television from USC and worked in Development at HBO Films in the early aughts.

Caroline grew up in Wyoming, where there are more tumbleweeds than people, and where she unconsciously absorbed the old-fashioned gender roles that prevail there. Now she writes irreverent dramedies about “difficult” women who dare to step off the conveyor belt of societal expectations and ask, “What do I owe the world? And what do I owe myself?” Her female protagonists are fierce, funny…and frankly, a little fucked up.

When she’s not writing, Caroline does improv, stand-up comedy, and plays a little Celtic fiddle. She is a PADI-certified Open Water Diver and once caught a fish in her sports bra while competing in a triathlon. Her head is chock full of movie quotes and song lyrics, but she tries to only blurt them out when appropriate.

Tiffanie Hsu is a writer/director whose work has played at Sundance, Cannes, HBO, and Netflix. She was selected as an HBO Visionary for her short, WONDERLAND, and is developing the feature in the Sundance and Film Independent Screenwriting Labs. The script was featured on The Black List’s 2020 Cape List. Her feature documentary, WATERSCHOOL, follows six girls from around the world fighting to protect their communities from climate change.

In 2020, Hsu was tapped to create a live-action series based on the Dr. Seuss property COME OVER TO MY HOUSE for the Jim Henson Company. She is writing and directing STRINGS, a punk rock comedy feature for MXN Entertainment (JUNO, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER), and developing a series based on the SF Spider Man burglar for Cavalry Media (HOUSE OF CARDS. THE SOCIAL NETWORK).

She is an alumna of Harvard, UCLA TFT, AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, WB’s Directors Workshop and Sony’s Diverse Directors Program, and a recipient of the prestigious Soros Fellowship. She grew up in Wisconsin, Taiwan, and Southern California, and got her start directing Shakespeare and stop-motion animation.

Kyle Kallman is a trained clown and bi jewish writer living in Los Angeles. 

Ryan Koo is the writer and director of AMATEUR, a 2018 Netflix Original Film and a Sundance Screenwriters Lab selection. For his web series THE WEST SIDE, Koo won the Webby Award for Best Drama Series and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Film. He is also the Founder of the popular filmmaking website No Film School.

Sierra Nutkevitch is a writer/director who creates exciting, thoughtful genre stories that blend humor and tension, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Her specialty is complicated women, thrown into impossible situations and growing to contend with them. Sierra has several years of experience in development, in addition to international production. She attained her MFA in Screenwriting/Directing from Columbia University, where she received several awards for her work including the School of the Arts Dean's Project Grant. She is currently developing a horror feature based on her thesis short film 'The Golem'. She is a Category Winner in the Final Draft Big Break Script Competition and a Screencraft Film Fund Semi-Finalist.

Nicholas C. Pappas is a screenwriter, playwright, director, and dramaturge. Plays include: Including Shooter (publisher: Playscripts), The Ballad of 423 and 424 (Heideman Award; Actor's Theatre of Louisville), Fatty (Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor), and The Dreams in Which I’m Dying (Deborah Aquila Reading Series). Published by Dramatics Magazine and Playscripts. Dramaturgy: Theatrefolk, Center Theatre Group, San Francisco Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, and South Coast Rep. He is a proud member of Lab Twenty6. A graduate of San Francisco State University’s MFA Playwriting program, he teaches film at Ventura College and theatre at Moorpark Colleges. He is currently in development on several television and film projects. @NicholasCPappas and nicholascpappas.com for more info.

Chase writes film and TV. He also wrote a book, a western. It took longer than expected but it won some awards and the film adaptation is in pre-production. His first script landed on the Black List way back in 2008 and then he waited tables for a few too many years. It wasn’t great but could’ve been worse. He has a fun day job learning and writing about the future.

NORELLE SCOTT is a New Zealand screenwriter and playwright based in LA. Her produced work includes – Film: ‘Bridget and Iain’ (short), ‘User Friendly’ (feature) and ‘Rud’s Wife’ (short). Television: anthology series: ‘True Life Stories’, serial: ‘Shortland Street’, limited series: ‘Marlin Bay’, ‘Gloss’ ‘Shark in the Park’. ‘Confidence’ for ‘Marlin Bay’ was an IAWG International Writing Award Finalist. Theatre: ‘Bridget and Iain’ - Short + Sweet Hollywood – Winner People’s Choice Award 2016. ‘Oracles and Miracles’ Encore Producer’s Award Winner at The Hollywood Fringe Festival 2018. Professional productions of ‘Promise Not To Tell’ in Auckland (NZ), Wellington (NZ), London (UK). Her adaptation ‘Uncle’s Story’ (from Witi Ihimaera’s novel) won the Antipodean Screenplay Award, Cinema des Antipodes Festival, France. She script-edited ‘Aroha’ – Best Series, ImagineNative, Canada and was Story Executive for ‘Tala Pasifika’ Drama Series.

Jacob Seltzer is a screenwriter and director. He co-wrote and co-directed the viral TikTok series “Mountain Murder Tapes” that was featured on No Film School, Working Director, HorrorBuzz and Vents Magazine. “Meow, Meredith,” a short film he wrote and directed starring Tara Karsian ("The Morning Show" “ER”), premiered at Virginia Film Festival. Jacob's drama television pilot “Guru” and feature script "Castrato" are currently being packaged. “No Kissing,” a short Jacob wrote and directed starring Molly Brown (“Billions" "Senior Year"), received the Audience Award at NewFilmmakers New York, an Honorable Mention at Queens World Film Festival, and screened at Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival and Tally Shorts. His previous films have received the Best Overall Film award from LMC-TV and screened at The National Film Festival For Talented Youth. Jacob graduated with High Honors from Wesleyan University and was a 2020 Inquiry Fellow. He is represented at Magnet Management.

Zoë Aiko Sonnenberg (she/her) is a writer and dramaturg. Born and raised in Chicago, she earned her B.A. in English with a minor in Theater and Performance Studies from Stanford University in 2018 and her M.Litt. in Playwriting and Dramaturgy from the University of Glasgow in 2021. She currently works with B.J. Novak on upcoming projects for film and TV, and has worked with numerous major nonprofit theaters and performing arts organizations in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and the Bay Area. One of the current board members for Lab Twenty6, Zoë is passionate about education, social justice, and storytelling in all its forms.

Gabriel Thibodeau tells queer stories, by every definition of the word. He studied creative writing at UC Berkeley and has fifteen years of experience working in various media, with expertise in children’s literature, literary fiction, narrative film, and promotional video. He is the proud recipient of a Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers, an 8th-place ranking among McSweeney’s Top 20 Articles of 2020, and a Speculative Literature Foundation Diverse Writers Grant, which was awarded in support of his novel-in-progress. (Yes, his novel is quite queer.)

Jagger Waters is a writer and producer in Los Angeles with 10 years of experience creating narrative storytelling across all platforms, from original content development and production spanning from film, tv, live events, VR/XR, social media and scripted podcasts. She's also the 2024 champion of the world's first AI eSports Tournament.

Eric Yang started his career in media as a local news photojournalist. He then went on to study at Florida State University College of Film, Television and Recording Arts where he earned his MFA in Film Production and received a Student Academy Award for his thesis film. He is also a Sundance Feature Film Institute Annenberg Fellowship recipient, and currently a professional videographer and editor specializing in performing arts content.