Introducing Diverso’s Black Writers in Focus 2022 Fellows
Diverso has partnered with Rideback and The Writers Guild Foundation for year two of Black Writers in Focus (BWIF): the first-ever paid summer fellowship program for Black student screenwriters.
Black Writers in Focus first emerged from the momentum of 2020’s summer of racial uprisings as a systematic initiative to help Black student writers break into the entertainment industry. In addition, BWIF serves as a long-lasting incubator for Black talent.
BWIF received submissions from Black students across over 90 different universities. Scripts were vetted by a committee of all-Black professional script readers, led by Diverso’s Manager of Strategy, Zora Hudson. On June 6th, Diverso announced the selection of their three BWIF Fellows— Wesley Goodrich, Kendra Daniels, and Ashley Morrow. These three outstanding individuals qualified as the top 1% of applicants.
Over summer 2022, these three writers will spend 10 weeks attending workshops with industry leaders, shadowing in writer’s rooms, and fine-tuning a writing sample with personalized mentors. Most importantly, in an industry notorious for its unpaid internships and low entry-level wages, these students will be paid to develop their craft.
Program director Reyana Patterson, an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, recruited the fellows’ mentors, including The Ebo Twins (Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul) Tayanna Todd (Manager @ Lionsgate), Aeryn Williams (Harlem, The Umbrella Academy) and Ariana Jackson (Riverdale). She also secured writers rooms at Tom Swift and Nancy Drew. Diverso’s Manager of Strategy, Jalissa Jackson, recruited panelists including Ed Solomon (Men in Black, Godzilla), Michelle Amor (Of Boys and Men), Morgan Cooper (Bel-Air), Jorge Gutierrez (The Book of Life), among others.
Diverso’s flagship initiative The Minority Report has successfully found staffing and/or representation for all of its past BIPOC student Fellows. With the invaluable partnership of Rideback and the Writers Guild Foundation, Diverso aims to replicate this success for its three BWIF Fellows, equipping them with the knowledge and relationships necessary for a prolific, lifelong career in TV and film.
Hailing from three unique institutions across the nation, the BWIF Fellows will meld their voices and perspectives into a rich cohort of 2021 summer writers. Find more information on them below:
Wesley Goodrich - HERETICS
School: Columbia University, MFA in Screenwriting
Logline: In the cold and calculated world of a mega-church, three janitors uncover a dark secret that goes all the way to the top.
Wes Andre Goodrich is a Brooklyn-based writer / director interested in using genre to tell stories about Black families, masculinity, and American history. Taking inspiration from eclectic sources ranging from Kendrick Lamar to Gordon Parks. Wes strives to create complex portraits of Caribbean Americans in his work. Since joining Columbia University’s graduate film program, Wes has written and directed three short films. His thesis film, PALM SUNDAY, is in pre-production a southern gothic drama about a Black man attempting to desegregate an all-white church in 1970s Raleigh North Carolina. Wes is the recipient of the Columbia University Dean’s Grant, The Katherina-Otto-Berstein Grant.
Kendra Daniels - THE WITCH DOCTOR
School: The Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, MFA in Creative Writing
Logline: After paranormal attacks threaten the upcoming election, A Witch Doctor and her students are called in as special forces to protect the President.
Raised in the rural small towns of Indiana and North Carolina and navigating the social climate surrounding them, Kendra quickly realized the importance of representation and how powerful the emotional impact of being seen is for minorities surrounding race, sexuality, and identity. After persevering through vision impairment in her early adulthood, Kendra pursued a BA in Media and Production at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she enjoyed collaborating and performing live plays. Today, Kendra is finishing up her MFA in Creative Writing as a 22' Michener fellow at UT Austin, with the next goal of breaking into television!
Ashley Morrow - REVERENCE
School: University of Michigan
Logline:
When a prestigious dance school is burned to the ground with the headmaster found dead inside, a detective must unravel a series of events to determine if there’s a murderer within the school’s conservatory.
As a First-Generation graduate of the University of Michigan, Ashley R Morrow earned her bachelors in Psychology, as well as Film, Television, and Media (concentrating in screenwriting), in May of 2022. As a Detroit, MI native, Ashley attributes culture and family to the creativity, passion and perseverance she embodies today. As a writer, Ashley aspires for her characters and stories to bring joy and agency to the underrepresented and the overlooked. Her personal motive for creation stems from her love for not only storytelling but connecting people through experiences vast and diverse.
