2020 Writers Lab

Our sixth annual Writers Lab program took place October 1-4, 2020, and was entirely virtual.

The Mentors and Speakers at the 2020 Lab included:

The 2020 Writers Lab Participants

Nicole Abshire
Imposter Impersonator

An imaginative girl’s small-town world is upended when she must team up with a fabulous outsider to create a funeral extravaganza for their shared mentor.
Comedy
Email: nichole@abshireunited.com
Twitter: @AbshireUnited

 

Charlotte Cameron
Throw Money

A savvy migrant office cleaner and her crew stage a secret heist in a London investment bank, armed only with their hostages’ paranoia and sense of omnipotence.
Thriller
Email: charlotte.cameron@me.com
Twitter: @charlottcameron

 

Elise Greven
Silent Spring

Biologist Rachel Carson takes on the government and powerful chemical industries as she struggles to write SILENT SPRING, the book that sparks the creation of the American environmental movement.
Biopic
Email: fussybunny@gmail.com

 

Joey Day Hargrove
Highway to Heck

When an uber-Christian teen is taken hostage in a bank robbery, she must convince her jaded captor to let her become his partner-in-crime, because she’s hell-bent on saving his soul.
Buddy Comedy
Email: joeydayhargrove@gmail.com
Twitter: @joeydhLA

 

Christine Hoang
Fly Girl

Linh Hoang Williams, 42 and a recent divorcee, joins a 90s-inspired hip-hop team to dance away her
demons and kick in a new life.
Comedy
Email: christinemaryhoang@gmail.com
Twitter: @1christinehoang

 

Christine Autrand Mitchell
The Field

When catatonic men, like human scarecrows, start assembling in a cornfield, an ambitious beat reporter
risks her life to uncover a world-changing secret.
Horror
Email: christineautrand@gmail.com
Twitter:  @dilettantegal
www.AnnLeSchander.com

Carolyn Saunders
Island West

On an isolated island in a world flooded by climate change, a young woman raised as a militant racist falls for an outsider who reveals the dark truth about her home and herself.
Sci Fi
Email: thesaundersgirl@gmail.com
Instagram: @endzonefilms & @islandwestmovie

 

Kelly Yoon Strathmore
Wing and a Prayer

In a Midwestern farm town, an impoverished teen resolves to make a better life for her disabled younger brother, but when she meets a resourceful homeless girl, she must save more than just the rent money.
Drama
Twitter: @KellyStrathmore

 

Barbara Ward Thall
Little Sister

In 1849 Missouri, a gender defiant farmgirl drags her flighty mother along on a rescue mission to save her abducted sister from escaped convicts.
Period Drama
Email: bwthall@gmail.com
Twitter: @bwthall

 

Victoria Thomas
Street Food

When a Nigerian refugee discovers that her promised job in Italy is sex work, she flees to a safe house where she joins her new community in fighting prejudice while cooking their way to freedom.
Immigration Drama
Email: vmathomas@outlook.com
Twitter: @thesheeo

 

Sandy Thomson
A Sharp Arrow

In 1695, a newly widowed woman battles the law, the church, and her own community when her neighbor accuses her of witchcraft so he can seize her land.
Historical Drama
Email: sandy@poorboy.co.uk
Twitter: @Poorboy_stories

 

Julie Zografos
Dark Quarry

In 1963 North Carolina, a defiant mute girl and the town pariah dig a strange bullet from a wolf pup and unravel a mystery that could save them both.
Coming of Age Drama
Email: J.Zografos.SplitBranchFilms@gmail.com

Finalists

Jackee Chang, Insatiable
Ji Un Choi, Bada
Marya Cohn, Hurricane Season
MaryAnna Donaldson, Pig in a Bathtub
Karyn Langhorne Folan, The Revisionist
Shannon Hamblin, Lilly Has Questions: A Sort of Memoir
Kate Hewlett, The Swearing Jar
Armelle Lajus, Malick
Krystyna Loboda, Doll
Jamie Mayer, Consent
Cath Moore, A Quiet Companion
Patricia Nagy, Mariology
Janice Okoh, Aina
Angelina Olkhovskaya, Eggshells
Anita Palathingal, Seen, Unseen
Charity Stashwick, Goal
Rangeley Wallace, Everybody Knows
Rae Welch, Her Dracula

Semifinalists

Emma Barnes, Mr. Keynes’ Revolution
Amy Carlson, The Pariah
Kara Sabin Doran, Finding Alice
Trish Dotson, Revolutionary Heart
Samia Doumit, Drown
Skye Emerson, Challenger
Theresa Burkhart Gallagher, Schmoolie the Deathwatcher
Audra Gorman, Beefalo
Nicole Jones, Shrimp
Elizabeth Keyishian, Tin Girls
Betty Lee Kim, Lucky Star
Paige Morrow Kimball, Late Bloomers
Jessie McCormack, Snookered
Valerie Miller, Withdrawal
Paula Puryear, Jupiter
Shoshana Rosenbaum, At the Edge of the Woods
Cheri Steinkellner, Prima Materia
Barbara Ward Thall, The Gold Fish
Sandy Thomson, Salt Water Blood
Cheryl Willis, The Live Oak
Cheryl Willis, Salt and Pepper
Elena Zucker, The Weathergirl