Students Brainstorm During Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop via Instagram

Brainstorm During Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Brainstorm During Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop via Instagram

First year MFA candidates Marco Antonio Rodriguez and Doreene Hamilton brainstorm together during January’s workshop.


Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.


Visit Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for more information.
Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Cierra Winkler – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Every Monday we will be profiling a member of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting 2020 graduating class. This exciting, fresh crop of writers are the future of the industry and are going on to do BIG things, so get to know them now! 

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Cierra Winkler

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Cierra Winkler

Cierra Winkler is a screenwriter and playwright from the Appalachian region of northeast Georgia. She is currently pursuing her MFA in TV & Screenwriting from Stephens College at Jim Henson Studios, where she’s been able to cultivate her love for creating Southern characters who defy stereotypes and bring authentic Southern voices to the screen. Cierra also enjoys telling female-driven epic adventures, and she’s even had the audacity to rewrite Homer in an epic reimaging of the Odyssey as told from Queen Penelope’s point of view.

In 2019 Cierra placed 2nd out of 400 pitches in Screencraft’s Pitchfest at the Atlanta Film Festival for her Odyssey-based feature screenplay Queen of Ithica. She was also a finalist in the 2019 Athena Film Festival’s Writer’s Workshop. Cierra is a member of the Atlanta Film Society and has been accepted into their Spring 2020 Production Academy, where she’ll be training for different positions within the Georgia film industry. Cierra will graduate from Stephens with her MFA in May 2020 and looks forward to what adventures in the film industry lie ahead!


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Pavel Jech Presents on short film screenplay writing at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Pavel Jech Presents on short film screenplay writing at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Pavel Jech Presents on short film screenplay writing at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Guest lecturer Pavel Jech, former Dean of FAMU, the Film and Television School of the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague and currently at Chapman University, gave excellent insights into the craft of writing a short film screenplay at January’s MFA workshop.


Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Claudia Puig Speaks On Film Critique at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (3 photos)

Claudia Puig Speaks On Film Critique at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (3 photos)

Claudia Puig Speaks On Film Critique at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (3 photos)

Claudia Puig Speaks On Film Critique at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (3 photos)

Claudia Puig Speaks On Film Critique at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (3 photos)

Claudia Puig, President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, came to January’s workshop to discuss the art of film critique as well as the current state of Diversity in Media. She also curates two film festivals and spoke about how to work the festival circuit to gain attention for your writing career.


Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Screenwriter Jane Anderson Presents at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Screenwriter Jane Anderson Presents at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Screenwriter Jane Anderson Presents at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (6 photos)

Screenwriter Jane Anderson Presents at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (6 photos)

Screenwriter Jane Anderson Presents at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (6 photos)

Screenwriter Jane Anderson Presents at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (6 photos)

Screenwriter Jane Anderson Presents at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (6 photos)

One of the highlights of January’s Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting workshop came in the form of a story structure seminar with screenwriting Jane Anderson (The Wife, Olive Kitteridge, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio) held on the Henson soundstage. Her energy and honesty in discussing her work and her life in the business was greatly appreciated.


Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Wynne Racine – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Every Monday we will be profiling a member of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting 2020 graduating class. This exciting, fresh crop of writers are the future of the industry and are going on to do BIG things, so get to know them now! 

Get ready to meet another member of the 2020 Stephens Cohort: Wynne Racine! #MeetTheGradsMonday

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Wynne Racine

Wynne Racine is a journalist who has spent much of her career writing for newspapers and television. For more than a decade she also produced a weekly, half-hour news program. Along the way, she owned a radio station formatted for kids (KKYD), wrote chapters for high school text books and was a regular contributor to a Russian magazine. Wynne entered the Stephens MFA program because she wanted to write a screenplay based on the life of her grandfather. With the help of Stephen’s mentors, that screenplay is now complete and, as of this writing, being considered by a major motion picture studio.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Carol Barbee Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Carol Barbee Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Carol Barbee Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Carol Barbee Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Carol Barbee Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Carol Barbee Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Carol Barbee Speaks at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (5 photos)

Carol Barbee, creator and showrunner of Netflix’s Raising Dion came to speak to the combined 1st and 2nd year students during January’s workshop. She outlined how she pitched her take on the original IP, how she hired her writers room, and how the create stories for the first year series – which has been given a pickup for season two so watch for it!


Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Children’s Animation Panel at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (3 photos)

Children’s Animation Panel at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Children’s Animation Panel at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Children’s Animation Panel at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

Children’s Animation Panel at the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop

MFA mentor Maria Escobedo (Dora the Explorer, Give a Mouse a Cookie) organized a children’s Animation panel for January’s workshop so MFA candidates were treated to a visit by Laura Kleinbaum (Butterbean’s Café, Esme and Roy) and Jenny Keene (Phineas and Ferb, Big City Greens). 


Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Alum Rashaan Dozier-Escalante Speaks On Her Screenwriting Career Journey at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (2 photos)

Alum Rashaan Dozier-Escalante Speaks On Her Screenwriting Career Journey at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (2 photos)

Screenwriting Career Journey at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (2 photos)

Screenwriting Career Journey at Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Winter Workshop (2 photos)

Alum Rashaan Dozier-Escalante (Class of 2019) stopped in at January’s workshop to tell our current Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting candidates the story of her career journey to become a staff writer on CBS’s Seal Team.


Questions about the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting?

Leave a comment here or email me, Executive Director, Dr. Rosanne Welch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Rene Rawls – Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

Every Monday we will be profiling a member of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting 2020 graduating class. This exciting, fresh crop of writers are the future of the industry and are going on to do BIG things, so get to know them now! First up is Yousif Nash! #MeetTheGraduatesMonday

This week in our #MeetTheGradsMonday, we are featuring Rene Rawls!

#MeetTheGraduatesMonday: Rene Rawls - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

With hands-on experience challenging the minds of tots, tweens, and teens, Rene Rawls is a former teacher turned writer who now has a classroom full of students all around the world. She’s participated in several programs with her kids-centered content, including Tribeca All Access and the PGA Diversity Workshop. Rene loves the fun and magical moments of learning, so she strives to capture that in the content she creates. Her animated script, Sule and the Case of the Tiny Sparks, stars an African proverb detective and was the recipient of the 1st Annual Mandela Day/Tribeca All Access Award. Sule was produced as an animated short, and it has over 200,000 Youtube views to date. Rene participated in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with her middle grade novel, Leba: Modern Day Savior, and her feature script about youth football in South Florida, The Big League (which is about kids but not for them), is currently being developed with RDR Release Films. In May 2020, Rene will graduate with her MFA in TV and Screenwriting from Stephens College.


Visit Stephens.edu/mfa for more information.

Follow @StephensMFA on Instagram

Follow and Like the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting

#MentorMonday 8 - Dawn Comer Jefferson - Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting