Home Writer’s Workshop 2019 Winners

2019 Winners

by Brandon T.

Alli Rock

Alli Rock

Alli Rock grew up in Boston, MA with a series of German Shepherds and a love of strange facts and experimental theater. After graduating from Wesleyan University with a degree in film studies, Alli spent several years in reality television. She worked her way up from research assistant to producer, developing shows on everything from gypsies to farm girls to psychic realtors. She left reality behind to be an assistant at MRC in their business and television departments, before joining the team at Westworld to work as assistant to showrunner Jonathan Nolan. Currently she works as the writers assistant on season three of Westworld.

Pilot Title: Time Sandwich

Logline: On New Years Eve, a millennial burnout gets sent back in time to prevent the events that ruined her life and sent her to jail — only to discover that the real enemy is her overachieving younger self.

Genre: Hour-Long Sci-Fi Dramedy


Gia El Aynaoui

Gia El Aynaoui

Gia was born in East New York and grew up in Brownsville Brooklyn, New York, a notorious working poor neighborhood. She’s a US Army veteran, she was a Counterintelligence Agent as well as a Military Intelligence Analyst during her ten-year career in the Army. She is also CSI certified. Gia moved to Southern Arizona and lived in a historic (haunted) house in Tombstone, Arizona, until last year.

Gia recently completed a mentorship with Alex Robb of Insignia Entertainment. She completed her feature length screenplay, Bloody Mary: Avenging Angel (selected in the 2019 First Ten Pages Scriptwriting Contest), under the mentorship of Ben Everard, executive producer of Lights Out.

Pilot Title: FEMALE ENGAGEMENT TEAM (FET) 12

Logline: A diverse group of female US Army soldiers led by a contentious captain tackle tough military situations while confronting cultural and social issues facing women throughout their area of operations.

Genre: Military procedural, action adventure, Female driven, Hour long, drama

Pilot Title: The Conversion

Logline: A medical researcher joins a resistance movement determined to return the
government to a democracy after a military coup turns it into a totalitarian state, while
keeping her activities a secret from her military policeman husband, who is unwittingly
hunting her.

Genre: Political intrigue, mystery, action adventure, female driven, hour long


Hannah Williamson

Hannah Williamson

Hannah Williamson was born and raised in the small Florida town of St. Augustine, known for improving the truth by calling itself The Nation’s Oldest City. Growing up around cannon fire, reenactors in costume at Publix, and general North Florida redneckery, she learned to find the absurd in the mundane. She typically writes about reluctant, flawed heroines who smoke a lot of weed and are in over their head, because she likes to write about herself.

Pilot Title: Local Spirits

Logline: Two sisters and a semi-friendly ghost team up during their Florida town’s 500th birthday celebration to stop an evil spirit from destroying the town that they all love–or at least are partial towards.

Genre: Comedy, half-hour, sci-fi, ghosts, historical, female-focused


JEREMY SVENSON

Jeremy Svenson

JEREMY SVENSON is an hour-long TV writer who has worked in the writers’ rooms on everything from broadcast, to cable, to video games.  Currently staffed on the BH90210 reboot on FOX, he’s also written and produced an episode of TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles and written for the award-winning Game of Thrones interactive story for Telltale Games.  His creative tastes are as versatile as his resume, and his passion for storytelling knows no genre.  When he’s not writing, Jeremy’s likely traveling the world with his partner of 8 years.  Whether blowgun hunting in the Amazon, fire dancing on a Thai beach, or fighting Lindsay Lohan for a parking space in the Greek Isles, some of his wildest stories come from his adventures to over a dozen countries and counting.

Pilot Title: Denmark, Michigan

Logline: After a scandal unseats the corrupt mayor and city council of a struggling rustbelt town, the city’s young, gay Human Services Commissioner becomes next in the line of succession and has a chance to try and save the hometown he’s been trying to escape from his whole life.

Genre: Hour-long, Drama, Political, Family, LGBTQ

Pilot Title: Held Back

Logline: Three high school seniors wake up the day after graduation to discover they’ve been transported back in time 4 years to relive high school all over again.  Knowing what they do now, these unlikely allies (a slacker, bookworm, and future prom queen) have a second chance to do things differently, but are they destined to make the same mistakes all over again?

Genre: Hour-long, Dramedy, Soap, Teen

Pilot Title: Long Live Primus

Logline: A serialized, hourlong drama that fuses the best elements of sci-fi and fantasy into a story of family and survival: After the planet Primus was destroyed, its sole survivors crash landed on a foreign planet where they discovered a native, medieval civilization who would sooner kill them than try to understand them.  It’s science versus superstition as the two worlds collide, but when a disillusioned Prime breaks ranks and goes out into this new world to rescue his lost wife, he begins to learn that everything he’d been told about this planet — and about his own people — may be lies. — Battlestar Galactica meets Game of Thrones.

Genre: Hour-long, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Drama


Sarah K. Moss

Sarah K. Moss

Sarah writes half-hour comedies, online content, sketch, and her own short bios. Last year, she co-wrote a freelance episode on the final season of FOX’s THE LAST MAN ON EARTH. She’s also a writer for Facebook Watch’s TXT STORIES, where her episodes have garnered up to 2.6 million views. She has worked as a Writers’ Assistant and Showrunners’ Assistant in several primetime writers’ rooms including FOX’s LAST MAN ON EARTH, ABC Family’s JANE BY DESIGN, and FOX’s BLESS THE HARTS where she’s currently the Writers’ Assistant. Additionally, her half-hour pilot EARTH-LIKE was featured on the 2019 Bitch List, and her script AVAST YE PIRATES was one of the top twenty comedy pilots at the 2017 Austin Film Festival. Sarah gets her distinct sense of humor from bouncing between her conflicting Northern and Southern families, spending time with loved ones with social disorders and autism, and having fun with her husband and two quirky step-kids.

Pilot Title: Earth-Like

Logline: An alien conspiracy theorist is abducted along with a mixed bag of other inept humans, and must use her seemingly absurd knowledge of aliens to try to escape an Earth-like neighborhood on another planet.

Genre: Comedy

Pilot Title: Avast Ye Pirates

Logline: An eighteenth-century pirate Captain disguises herself as a civilized woman in order to exact revenge on a wealthy shop owner, but she reaches an impasse when her adversary’s kind-hearted son discovers her true identity.

Genre: Comedy


Evan Iwata

Evan Iwata

Evan Iwata grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin – the birthplace of Oshkosh B’Gosh overalls – where his Japanese-American father and extremely Midwestern mother provided him with a nurturing yet culturally confusing East-meets-Midwest upbringing. Inspired by his father’s photography career, Evan took an early interest in filmmaking, and at the age of 16 he was hired to shoot a documentary about Oshkosh’s little-known hip-hop scene. He went on to attend the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and upon graduation he quickly found his way into the writers room, working as a researcher on the CBS medical drama PURE GENIUS and writers’ assistant on Starz’s OUTLANDER, where he pitched and wrote original scenes for DVD bonus content. He now assists Jerome Schwartz, a drama writer with an overall deal at ABC Studios, for whom he has pitched ideas and helped break story for multiple projects in development. On his own, Evan writes emotionally grounded, character-driven dramas and dramedies that focus on ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances.

Pilot Title: American Infamy

Logline: In 1940s Portland, a rebellious Japanese-American teenager must step up to help his family withstand the wave of persecution that arises after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Genre: Historical Family Drama

Pilot Title: Destructive Tendencies

Logline: A family in a small Midwestern town is forced to reexamine their priorities when the world learns of an extinction-level meteor hurtling towards Earth, which threatens to tear them apart in more ways than one.

Genre: Hour-long Family Dramedy


James Rogers III

James Rogers III

James Rogers III was born and raised in Compton, California. He escaped the hysteria in his neighborhood by way of fantasy books, The Truman Show, and various shonen anime. James first found filmmaking by transforming his encounters with danger into fantasy stories on his dad’s old camcorder. He has written and directed three short films, including an award-winning animated short (Felix). He currently has two screenplays in the semi-finalist round for the Sundance Episodic Lab, is a UTA First Look short film finalist, and an ATX TV Festival Pitch Competition top 10 finalist. James also went to college with his father, James the II…but that’s another story.

Pilot Title: Sun

Logline: A closeted artist must figure out his place in his dysfunctional modern family, when his plans to come out to his conservative parents are thrown into chaos by his younger brother coming out first.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Animation, Half Hour

Pilot Title: The Vanishing Mirror

Logline: Two rambunctious kids must travel through a vast number of parallel worlds when their brother disappears into a magical mirror. While unraveling the mysteries that led them there, they discover witch-like abilities, strange new friends, and powerful enemies.

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Young Adult, Animation, Half Hour.


CS Fischer

CS Fischer

CS Fischer grew up in a small, rural, Illinois town, where everyone knew everyone and the most popular club in high school was the Future Farmers of America. On the short list to work in the Obama White House, Fischer changed courses when she got into USC’s screenwriting MFA program. After graduating, she worked in artificial intelligence for three years before moving over to work on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD for two seasons. Currently, she is the showrunner’s assistant on the upcoming Marvel show, Helstrom.

Pilot Title: The Bone Wars

Logline: A headstrong paleontologist must fight off a well-connected rival to be the first to discover a new species of dinosaur.

Genre: Drama, Historical, Rivalry, Feature, True Story

Pilot Title: The War Magicians

Logline: A magician with a dangerous secret joins forces with the British military to use knowledge of stage magic to help win World War II.

Genre: Drama, Historical, Hour-Long, Television, War, Military

Pilot Title: The Death of Robin Hood

Logline: A woman-in-mourning takes up the mantle of Robin Hood to protect the people of Nottingham in a time of political upheaval.

Genre: Drama, Historical, Action, Hour-Long, Television


Emily Palizzi

Emily Palizzi

Emily Palizzi has possessed a highly creative mind since age four, when she was awarded BEST IMAGINATION in Kindergarten. Determined to put that imagination to good use, Emily graduated from the University of Colorado with a BFA in Television, Film & Theatre (with an emphasis in Writing & Directing) and immediately moved to Los Angeles. During her 8.5 years in LA so far, Emily has written and produced a webseries entitled The Rule of 3, worked as a CBS Page, been a Writers’ PA on both seasons of Marvel’s Agent Carter, and is currently going into her second season as Script Coordinator on DC’s The Flash. In her free time, Emily enjoys playing tennis, Dungeons & Dragons (she’s an Elf Rogue named Rinn), her ukulele, and also traveling.

 

Pilot Title: Amber Waves

Logline: Estranged brothers Cal and Nick Fields are reunited when a clue leading to the mythical treasure of nefarious pirate captain Marco D’Amato, and his ship, The Foul Manta, is unearthed, but gold and glory doesn’t come easy in the wild and dangerous world of professional treasure hunting as Cal and Nick face off against modern day pirates, drug lords, and rival treasure hunter Reid Becker… the man who murdered their father.

Genre: hour-long, drama, action/adventure

Pilot Title: Cristo

Logline: Alex Bertram escapes prison, 16 years into his life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit, seeking revenge on those who ruined his life – namely, his jealous brother, Hawk – only to realize that the world he was locked away from for those 16 long years is a world he no longer recognizes…

Genre: hour-long, drama, sci-fi, action/adventure


Rishabh Bhavnani

Rishabh Bhavnani

Rishabh Bhavnani was born in Mumbai, raised in Dubai and New Delhi, and coming of age in Los Angeles. A typical Third Culture Kid, he sees the world through various identities and perspectives. In his senior year of high school, he had his “Almost Famous” moment when he got a chance to cover music for the Indian edition of People Magazine. After moving to Los Angeles to attend Chapman University, where he earned a Bachelors in Creative Writing, he continued to build upon his music journalism career, while also dabbling in PR and record label management. His writings have appeared VIBE, DJ MAG, OC Weekly, Magnetic Magazine, and VICE.

After seven years in the music business, he decided to bring his learnings into the Film / TV world working in development for various management and production companies. He enjoys hip coming-of-age stories, unique International subcultures. His writings bring an immersive cultural analysis, sharp wit, and a warm sense of humanity.

Pilot Title: Staying In America

Logline: With nine months left before his student visa expires, a struggling journalist in LA must find a way to stay in the country.

Genre: Feature, WWII, Sci-Fi, Action, Drama, Dark

Pilot Title: SHINKOLOBWE

Logline: When uranium exposure gives a Congolese miner superpowers, he races to save his adopted daughter caught in a crossfire between the warring US and Nazi troops. 

Genre: Feature, WWII, Sci-Fi, Action, Drama, Dark

Pilot Title: EXTENSION

Logline: An immigration twist on COMMUNITY with international students set at a fictionalized version of UCLA Extension.

Genre: TV, half-hour, comedy, network