Go Into The Story Interview: Laura Kosann

My interview with the writer who not only was named a 2021 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting recipient, but also had two scripts make the 2021 annual Black List.

Laura Kosann made quite a splash in Hollywood in 2021. In November, she was named a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting winner for her original screenplay An Ideal Woman. Then in December, that script plus another screenplay Laura wrote (From Little Acorns Grow) were named to the annual Black List. If that weren’t enough, the good news continued when in April 2022, it was announced that Laura had been hired to adapt the female-driven comic book Mercy Sparx for MGM.

Laura was kind enough to carve out some time for us to talk about her background, the craft of screenwriting, and her screenplay An Ideal Woman.

Here are links to the entire 6-part series which has run this week.

Part 1: “The way I learned is I’d read scripts while watching what I was reading onscreen.”

Part 2: “That’s many times how it starts. Not with this full story. But an opening scene that gets me asking questions. Who is she? Why is she there?”

Part 3: “I can tend to bump up against having an exact outline. You have to let some magic happen when you’re working through it.”

Part 4: “I swear, sometimes when you’re writing, stuff happens, that’s extremely kismet. You’re like, ‘Whoa, that happened because that was meant to occur.’”

Part 5: “As a screenwriter, the Black List is always on your radar, but you’re always like, ‘Pie in the Sky, that would be amazing.’”

Part 6: “Do not think about what’s in the market, what gets made, what needs to get made. Come from a very real, raw, emotional place.”

To learn more about the Nicholl screenwriting competition, go here.

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.

For my interviews with Black List writers, go here.