THE BLACK LIST ANNOUNCES SIX FINALISTS FOR 4TH ANNUAL FEATURE WRITERS LAB

An amazing week in L.A. for 6 lucky screenwriters.

From the good folks at the Black List:

LOS ANGELES, CA (October 3, 2017) — This morning, the Black List unveiled the names of the six screenwriters that have been chosen for the Black List’s 2017 Feature Writers Lab. The writers, none of whom have made more than $100K in their writing careers, were selected from nearly 900 submissions. 
 
 All six will participate in a weeklong, residential workshop in Los Angeles from October 8–14 for which all expenses will be paid by the Black List. Each writer will workshop one screenplay through a peer workshop and one-on-one sessions with working professional screenwriting mentors. Additionally, they will attend a series of events and screenings that will further expose them to the realities of a life as a professional screenwriter. 
 
 The 2017 Black List Lab participants and their screenplays are as follows (listed alphabetically by author):
 
 Dagny Looper — SLEEPING WITH THE DEAD
 Jean Pesce — THE ROVERS
 Wallaine Sarao — PAST DUE
 Paul da Silva — TRAUMA CENTER
 Ann Sloan — GO BETTY!
 Curt Zacharias, Jr. — 35MM
 
 The 2017 Black List Lab mentors are Phil Hay (RIDE ALONG), Jamie Linden (MONEY MONSTER), Phyllis Nagy (CAROL), Allison Schroeder (HIDDEN FIGURES), Kiwi Smith (LEGALLY BLONDE) and Scott Myers (GO INTO THE STORY, the official blog of the Black List).
 
 Participant Bios
 
 Originally from rural Arkansas, Dagny Looper studied artificial intelligence at the Research Science Institute at M.I.T. and went on to get her B.Sc. in astrophysics from Caltech and her PhD from the Institute for Astronomy. She recently graduated with an MFA in writing/directing from NYU Tisch. She is repped by Anonymous Content.
 
 Jean Pesce received her MFA in film directing from NYU this past May, and now lives in Los Angeles. Jean’s feature screenplay, The Rovers, was a Finalist in the Austin Film Festival. She just completed her NYU thesis film, a dark comedy called So You Like the Neighborhood starring Tony nominee Sarah Stiles. 
 
 Wallaine Sarao holds a MFA in Writing from USC and BA in English from SDSU. In 2009, she won the Cynosure Grand Prize for PAST DUE. In 2010, she was accepted to FOX Writers Initiative and optioned a hour-long pilot with FOX called PROTECTORS. She lives in Glendale, CA
 
 Paul J. da Silva is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and a graduate of UC Berkeley. Several years ago he moved to Los Angeles to earn his MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA, and he has been diligently writing screenplays ever since. 
 
 Ann Sloan is an award winning writer, producer, and editor of TV promos and trailers. Born and raised in New Jersey, she has spent her adult life in Los Angeles where lives with her husband. Go Betty! is her first full length screenplay.
 
 Curt Zacharias Jr. spent his childhood wandering around the Sonoran Desert and making up stories. Now he lives with his wife and two kids in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he still wanders and makes up stories, some of which he writes down.
 
 ABOUT THE BLACK LIST
 The Black List, an annual survey of Hollywood executives’ favorite unproduced screenplays, was founded in 2005. Since then, more than 319 Black List scripts have been produced, grossing over $26 billion in box office worldwide. Black List movies have won 51 Academy Awards from 264 nominations, including four of the last nine Best Picture Oscars and ten of the last twenty Best Screenplay Oscars.
 
 In October of 2012, the Black List launched a unique online community where screenwriters make their work available to readers, buyers and employers. Since its inception, it has hosted more than 40,000 screenplays and teleplays and provided more than 65,000 script evaluations. As a direct result of introductions made on the Black List, dozens of writers have found representation at major talent agencies and management companies, as well as sold or optioned their screenplays. In only three years, a half dozen films have been produced from scripts introduced on the website including Golden Globe nominated NIGHTINGALE, starring David Oyelowo.

This will be my 10th Black List writing lab including 6 mini-labs held in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York (twice), San Francisco, and Toronto. In fact, I have been a mentor at every single Black List lab involving feature film writers. The labs are educational, intense, and most of all inspiring.

I look forward to working with the talented writers selected for this year’s lab and intersecting with the other mentors, a stellar group (as always).

To read reflections of previous Black List writing lab participants and see how they’re faring in the business, go here.

And check this out:

The Inaugural Black List/Women In Film Feature Lab for Women Writers supported by Verizon go90

The Black List and Women In Film will invite six to eight promising non-professional screenwriters who identify as women to a weeklong, intensive writers workshop in Los Angeles, CA from February 18–24, 2018. All writers involved in the Lab will workshop one feature screenplay through one-on-one sessions with each screenwriting mentor and in peer workshops. The weeklong program will also include attendance at several story-related events including screenings and Q&As with professional screenwriters and dinner with lit agents and managers.

I’ll be a mentor there as well. For more information, go here.