8th Annual Native American TV Writers Lab Opens Call For Script Submissions

Valerie Complex
·2 min read

The Native American Media Alliance, a Native American advocacy organization, in partnership with A+E Networks, US Bank and One Small Planet, announced today they are accepting applications for the 8th Annual Native American TV Writers Lab.

The Native American Media Alliance (NAMA) advocates for Native American representation in the entertainment industry. This initiative functions as a resource for industry personnel to work with Native Americans who have an authentic voice for film, television and new media. The Native American Media Alliance is a project of the Barcid Foundation; a non-profit organization that focuses on multimedia programming in indigenous communities.

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“We are excited to bring in the New Year with this incredible initiative that has pro-pelled several Native American writers on their artistic journeys.” announced Ian Skorodin (Choctaw), Barcid Foundation CEO and NAMA Director of Strategy. “As always, we foresee great things for our next cohort of talented and emerging indigenous writers.”

The Native American TV Writers Lab is an intensive virtual TV writing work-shop that prepares Native Americans for writing careers at major television networks. This lab is designed to address the lack of Native American writers in primetime network TV.

The lab boasts numerous successes that has had several fellows go on to staff on current series on Netflix, CBS, HBO, Hulu and others. Other lab fellows have sold pilots, obtained writer assistant positions and have acquired literary representation. During the lab, fellows meet with executives from our corporate partners and industry personnel.

The Native American TV Writers Lab was created in accordance with the Barcid Foundation’s mission to improve media portrayals of Native Americans and to in-crease the number of Native Americans employed in all facets of the media industry.

The multi-week lab will take place April to May on a virtual platform and will offer approximately 10 Native American writers an opportunity to participate. The lab consists of panel discussions, one on one meetings and group workshops. The purpose of the lab is to further develop the skills of the writers and prepare them for employment in the industry.

The Native American TV Writers Lab is for seasoned writers who are capa-ble of writing at least one half hour comedy or one-hour drama television script within a five-week period. Each selected participant is expected to complete at least one script by the end of the five-week session, which will then be read by network executives.

The Native American TV Writers Lab early deadline to apply is January 16th, 2023 (regular deadline is January 30th, 2023 and late deadline February 13th, 2023). For more information and to submit please visit http://www.nama.media.

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