Pitching yourself as a person and a writer is a skill that is just as important as pitching your projects—in fact, selling yourself helps you successfully sell your projects! In this session, Eli Edelson (development executive and writer/producer, Motherland: Fort Salem) leads an interactive workshop on crafting a unique, memorable, and effective personal pitch.

We're holding a lottery to determine the five attendees who will participate live and deliver a 3-minute personal pitch for feedback. If you’re interested in participating live and on-camera, please submit this form no later than 11:59PM on Sunday, November 30. All Pass Holders are eligible to submit. We’ll notify participants by email on Tuesday, December 2.

Writers on Writing takes a look at a screenwriter’s career and writing process, from their early introductions to screenwriting to their proudest career accomplishments—plus all the lessons learned in between.

For this session, we welcome writer and director Nia DaCosta to discuss her extensive career in film, including her most recent project, Hedda.

This session is sponsored by Amazon MGM Studios.

Great characters are essential to great stories, so what goes into creating memorable and authentic characters that audiences will want to spend time with? In this session, Robert Munic (Power Book IV: Force, The Cleaner) shares important elements to consider about character backgrounds, goals, and personalities to create well-defined characters.

Participants will be selected to discuss a character they’re developing for a live development session, sharing the character’s backstory, personality, internal and external motivations, their connection to the story, and any challenges they’re having with developing the character.

Get a glimpse into the mechanics of a writers' room in this live, interactive workshop. Brian Studler leads a virtual room of 10 staff writers through the process of breaking a TV episode.

We’re holding a lottery to determine the “staff writers” who will participate live and on camera for this session. If you’re interested in participating as a staff writer, please submit this form no later than 11:59PM on Sunday, November 30. All Pass Holders are eligible to submit. We’ll notify participants by email on Tuesday, December 2.

You’ve heard the mantra before: writing is rewriting. But if you have a messy draft with conflicting feedback, how should you best approach revisions? 

In this session, Rodney Barnes will break down how he tackles rewrites and evaluates feedback. We’ll explore the major layers of revision from big-picture structural changes to scene-level refinements and share how to identify a script’s weaknesses, prioritize notes, and decide what to cut, keep, or rethink. Whether you’re preparing for a professional rewrite or polishing your first draft, this session offers practical insights into how to strengthen your scripts.

Whether you’re working with a novel, podcast, article, or historical event, adapting existing stories to film and television means balancing originality with respect for the source material.

In this session, Janet Batchler will guide attendees through the process of adapting intellectual property to the big screen. We’ll discuss what makes an existing idea adaptable, how to approach iterating on the original work, and evaluating areas of opportunity to expand, condense, or reinvent the stories you’re adapting.

Ready to break into television writing by conquering the "other half" of your career? In this session, author and TV writer Nikhil S. Jayaram will guide you through three key areas of your career development: how to pitch yourself confidently, how to network authentically, and how to succeed in a meeting. Based on the teachings in his book The TV Writer’s Hidden Path, you’ll learn how to navigate the “non-writing” factors of your career and gain valuable insights into strategies and formulas to land your first role as a working TV writer.

We're holding a lottery to determine the 3-4 attendees who will participate live and deliver a self-pitch for feedback. If you’re interested in participating live and on-camera, please submit this form no later than 11:59PM on Sunday, November 30. All Pass Holders are eligible to submit. We’ll notify participants by email on Tuesday, December 2.

Sex scenes are among the most delicate moments to write—and the easiest to get wrong. Learning how to craft these stories with intentionality, purpose, and respect is key to strengthening the collaborative partnership between writers, actors, and directors.

In this session led by experienced intimacy coordinator Katherine O’Keefe, you’ll learn how to approach sex scenes professionally, thoughtfully, and artistically. By the end of this lecture, you’ll learn how to communicate intentions clearly, build trust on set, and navigate vulnerability. We’ll break down common script issues that can lead to on-set problems, examine examples of unprofessional and underwritten scenes, and study effective scripts that model best practices.

CONTENT NOTICE: This session is intended for mature audiences and includes references to sexual content and may contain strong language.