Lynda Brendish is an Aotearoa New Zealand-raised drama writer and former freelance journalist with a deep love of research. Her stories spring from the well between the larger-than-life women who raised her and the questions of family and belonging left behind by her estranged Iraqi father. While she continues to uncover those answers in life, Lynda explores these questions in her writing, telling stories anchored by messy women searching for truth on the path to self-discovery. She was an inaugural fellow in the Circle of Confusion Writers Discovery Fellowship in 2021 and is an alum of the 2022-2023 Warner Bros. TV Writers Workshop. Lynda is repped by Samantha Starr at Circle of Confusion.
Michael J. Gutierrez, a Los Angeles-based writer, has studied and performed comedy at The Upright Citizens Brigade (Hollywood), iO West, and The Second City Hollywood. Michael has also been successfully rejected from Saturday Night Live as both a writer and performer for five consecutive years. BUT he’s successfully been a story consultant for Broadway Video’s podcast “Outlandish” and has written many film and TV trailers. In 2021 he was an inaugural fellow in the Circle of Confusion Writer Discovery program and most recently wrote for Netflix's FUBAR and Amazon Prime's REACHER. Michael is represented by Amplified and The Gersh Agency.
About a year after the fellowship completed, Elena had that "that's my thing" moment with songwriting, and is working towards the goal of writing with and for artists. In February 2023, Elena won SongwriterUniverse's best song of the month contest and in September 2023, got to be part of a week long Songwriting Retreat in Nashville where the "that's my thing" experience really solidified. Being a songwriter / topliner (lyrics & melody) is what Elena feels she’s meant to do.
Larry Powell is a true multi-hyphenate artist born and raised in South Central LA. As an Award-Winning Actor he has premiered fierce new plays like The Christians by Lucas Hnath, The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, and more. He has enjoyed playing Rick James on MGM+’s upcoming Hotel Cocaine. As a Writer, he is the recipient of the 2021 IAMA Theatre Company Shonda Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Award, 2020 Cornelia Street Playwriting Award, and is an inaugural 2021 Circle of Confusion Writers Discovery Fellow. His play “The Gaze”, a 2021 O'Neill NPC finalist, is also an award-winning digital series. “The Gaze Series” is a two-time 2021 Daytime EMMY Award Nominee, 2021 Webby Award Honoree and 2021 Micheaux Film Festival’s Best Comedic Digital Series Winner. He also Wrote/Directed/Starred In/Produced his debut experimental feature film project “Mother’s Milk: A Film Quilt” (2021 Seattle International Film Festival’s New American Cinema Special Jury Prize). He’s a Staff Writer on hit, 2x EMMY Nominated TV Sitcom “The Ms. Pat Show” (BET+).
Halo Starling (they/he) is a writer, director, performer, and artist, worldbuilding positive futures in the husk of the capitalist experiment. They are a multi-hyphenate artist whose work in moving images, performance, and writing, explores what it means to be trapped inside structures that are meant to help you. Starling envisions ways out by building worlds where marginalized people find more resources to fully thrive.
Starling is a Ph.D. student in Media Arts + Practice at USC School of Cinematic Arts, where they are working on film, new media, and writing projects about trans cinematic aesthetics, auto-theoretical ethnographies, and queer and trans worldbuilding, with an ecological focus. They are concurrently pursuing the Performance Studies Graduate Certificate at USC Roski School of Art and Design.
Chanelle Wang is a screenwriter and actress where her work has screened at film festivals such as the Seattle Asian Film Festival, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Vancouver Asian Film Festival, and Taiwanese American Film Festival. Her upbringing as a second generation Cantonese American along with her love for sitcoms such as I Love Lucy and Will and Grace bred an interest in telling stories of cultural duality through a comedic lens.