Proud to announce the 2022 Fellowship Winners and Honorable Mentions

Stowe Story Labs is proud to announce the 2022 Fellowship Winners and Honorable Mentions to the 2022 Narrative Labs:

Champlain College Fellow:

Emma Worthge. Portland, Or

Tomorrow is Today – Romantic Comedy Feature

Logline: After a stunted man finds the love of his life in a therapists waiting room, he must go on a journey to find her, breaking all romantic convention (and a few laws) in the process.

Bio: Emma Worthge is a creative writer originally from San Francisco, CA. She is extremely excited for this fellowship opportunity, having just completed her BFA in Creative Media from Champlain College in May. Growing up she was immersed in many creative endeavors, finding her passions in script writing and improvisational theater. When she isn't writing, she can be found baking or singing aimlessly through her house.

Film Fatales Fellow:

Diana Peralta. Brooklyn, NY

No Love Lost – Thriller Feature

Logline: Diana Peralta is a Dominican-American director and writer from NYC. Her debut feature, DE LO MIO, is being distributed by HBO. She was featured in Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Diana is in development on her second feature film, NO LOVE LOST. She is also developing an original TV pilot with UCP through the Ojála Ignition Lab Fellowship. She currently teaches directing at Columbia University's Film MFA program.

Bio: When a troubled young woman brings her enigmatic boyfriend home to meet her family, her devoted but insular sisters reveal the extremes they will go to protect one another.

Film Fatales Honorable Mention:

Angela Danielovna Matemotja. Hawthorne, CA / 1989, A Punk Rock Love Story – Drama Feature

Final Draft Fellow:

Brian Padian. Portland, OR

Devil's Bend – Horror Feature

Logline: When an anxiety-prone actress leaves Los Angeles for the summer to relax at a remote property in the Sierra Nevada mountains with her husband, she discovers bloodshed occurred there centuries earlier and that a vengeance-seeking ghost is tracking her.

Bio: Brian Padian is a writer/director whose recent credits include the micro-budget feature film THE BLACK SEA, the webseries MICROAGGRESSIONS, and MAN OF LA MANSION, a webseries told entirely in still photos. He is currently in production on his second feature SISTER/BROTHER. Brian holds an MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute, where he was awarded the Jack Oakie Memorial Scholarship for Comedic Screenwriting, and before that he studied filmmaking and theater arts at Humboldt State University. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Final Draft Honorable Mention:

Curtis Matzke. Chicago, IL / Tin Can – Drama TV

HollyShorts Film Festival Fellow:

Oona O’Leary. Chicago, IL

Re Possessed – Dark comedy TV

Logline: A young acoustician in Las Vegas teams up with a new-age grifter when she learns that capturing things that go bump in the night is more lucrative than soundproofing them.

Bio: Oona O'Leary is a Chicago-based writer. Before that she was a bartender in Xi’an, China. Before that she was an ESL instructor in Seoul, South Korea. Before that she was an Italian translator in Newark, NJ. She has performed sketch comedy across Chicago since 2011. In 2013 she performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the London-based group Stand Up Tragedy. In 2015 she wrote and produced BACKPAX, a live sitcom at The Second City’s DeMaat Theatre. Chicago Dramatists has produced two of her ten-minute plays: 20 Questions and Willing It. Her full-length screenplay EXPOSURE won second place in the inaugural Krevoy Screenwriting Fund Prize. She produced her one-act comedy Please Go Gentle into that Good Night as part of the 2017 Araca Project at The American Theatre of Actors. Her webseries Not To Scale is in post-production.

HollyShorts Film Festival Honorable Mention:

Gabrielle Roberts. Hinsdale, IL / Level Up – Comedy Feature

Irish Film London Fellow:

Ewen Glass. Lincoln, Great Britain

A DIFFERENCE – Comedy, Drama TV

Logline: A grown-up family, still coming to terms with the complicated legacy of fostering scores of troubled kids, struggles to stay close while navigating their lives, loves and losses in modern Belfast.

Bio: I was raised in a working-class family in a small market town in Ireland, a birth child in a family that fostered scores of troubled children. When I became a finalist for Ireland Young Playwright of the year at 17, I was sure I knew what my future held. After graduating from uni, I began writing for the theatre between low-paid jobs, before finally moving into TV and film. My feature film LITTLE KINGDOM, a period drama about a small town in 1940s Slovakia struggling under the yoke of a cruel industrialist, was released in 2019 and sold well across the world. Other credits include British serial drama HOLLYOAKS and A SIGN OF THINGS (a drama for Irish TV that was nominated for Debut Broadcast writer award at Edinburgh TV Festival’s prestigious Debbie Awards). Small screen or big, I’m committed to telling engaging stories with rich, diverse characters that say something about 21st Century living.

Irish Film London Honorable Mention:

Samantha Moody. Worcestershire, Great Britain / Wychwood – Horror TV

The Law Firm of Stacey A. Davis Fellow:

Laura Mannino. Los Angeles, CA

Bodice Rippers – Comedy TV

Logline: When a secretive American romance fanfic writer collides with a gay runaway British princess in the Scottish Highlands, they set out together to search for love during a brewing independence movement.

Bio: Laura Mannino grew up in White Plains, New York, a former site of the Revolutionary War and the current home to five malls. She graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. Laura performed stand-up, improv, and sketch at bars, former strip clubs, current yoga studios, and actual dungeons throughout New York City and Los Angeles. Credits include writing for MTV, Quibi, Awestruck, and A&E Networks’ digital platforms. Bodice Rippers is a 2022 ATX TV Festival Pitch Competition Finalist and Black List Reader Recommended. When Laura isn’t writing, she’s engaged in progressive politics. She is the founder of Drain The NRA, a grassroots organization that successfully pressured corporations to end their affiliation with the NRA, and also worked for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. For more, visit lauramannino.com.

The Law Firm of Stacey A. Davis Honorable Mention:

Rachel Fisher and Tara Gallat. Maplewood, NJ / Miss Perkins – Drama TV

Maven Screen Media Fellow:

Rebecca Miller. Brooklyn, NY

Green-Wood – Animated TV

Logline: When their eternal resting place is overrun by visitors, the distinguished, deceased residents of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery must overcome their differences to defend their home from a terrifying new threat: The Living.

Bio: Rebecca Louise Miller is a Brooklyn-based writer and performer who writes heartbroken comedies and funny tragedies about interesting people in impossible situations. Her pilot Green-Wood, an animated comedy about the distinguished, deceased residents of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, won the Rooster Teeth Women in Animation Fellowship at the 2021 Austin Film Festival and the Stowe Story Labs/Maven Fellowship. Rebecca’s plays have been performed around the world, and her short film One Day Home, a sexy comedy with a broken heart of gold, won the Audience Award at the Iron Mule Comedy Festival and has been watched over 300K times on Omeleto.com. Several years ago, Rebecca left a career in HR to spend a year teaching women about power and influence alongside a professional Dominatrix. This experience inspired her latest pilot, a dark dramedy called Catch and Release.

Maven Screen Media Honorable Mention:

Kerry McPherson. Los Angeles, CA / Baby Saigon – Drama TV

NewEnglandFilm.com Fellow:

Sarah Zeiser. Somerville, MA

Away with the Fairies – Drama TV

Logline: After witnessing her cousin Bridget Cleary being burned alive, 19th-century Irish mother Hanney Burke must weigh her faith and beliefs against the truth demanded of her by the colonizing British legal system in AWAY WITH THE FAIRIES.

Bio: As a historian, feminist, and award-winning screenwriter, Dr. Sarah Zeiser uses both her passion and her trained skill to uncover the voices and experiences of the women and men of the past. Her first pilot AQUITAINE, about the infamous 12th-century Queen Eleanor of France and England, won the Gold Prize for TV Drama Pilot in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards and earned her an Honorable Mention in the NewEnglandFilm.com Fellowship competition for a place at the Stowe Story Labs. Her additional projects include a limited series on the Norman conquest of England (THE CONQUEST) and her 2022 Stowe script AWAY WITH THE FAIRIES, about the murder of a woman believed to be a fairy changeling in late-19th-century Ireland. Dr. Zeiser holds a BA in Medieval Studies from Smith College and an AM and PhD in Celtic Languages & Literatures and Medieval Studies from Harvard University. She is Co-Director of the Boston Harvardwood Writers Program and has been a module leader in the Jeff Sagansky Harvardwood TV Writers Program.

NewEnglandFilm.com Honorable Mention:

Erik Van Wyck. Kennebunkport, ME / Entropy – Thriller Feature

NYX Horror Collective Fellow:

Sandra Campbell. Houston, TX

Marked – Horror Feature

Logline: A paranormal psychologist and her team investigate an infamous house whose past occupants have met a gruesome end; however, in the process, she discovers her own shocking connection to the place, which could lead to her demise.

Bio: Sandra holds a degree in psychology and a minor in political science from the University of Houston. As a former contributor and on-air talent expert for StudioD, her work has appeared on websites such as Livestrong, eHow, Global Post, Modern Mom, and The Classroom. She was a quarterfinalist and semi-finalist for the 2016 Mary Ballard Poetry Prize. Her script Article V won the Outstanding Drama Award at the 2017 Sacramento International Film Festival, and her psychological thriller Fade to Black was a quarterfinalist in the 2018 Scriptapalooza screenplay contest. Sandra is a member of the National Writers Union and serves as a contract advisor for the National Writers Union Grievance and Contract Division Committee. She also serves on the National Writers Union Executive Board as an At-Large Representative.

NYX Horror Collective Honorable Mention:

Dina Fiasconaro. Baltimore, MD / Beneath the Remains – Horror Feature

PAGE International Screenwriting Awards Fellow:

Nevil Jackson. Los Angeles, CA

The Hill – COmedy TV

Logline: In his first year as a high school teacher, a young black man from Harlem struggles to navigate the politics and prejudices of life at a boarding school in the whitest place in America – Maine.

Bio: Born in New York City, Nevil Jackson grew up in the arts pursuing photography, music, and ballet. After earning BA in Philosophy he taught high school literature, and then earned a master’s degree from NYU’s Tisch Film School in Singapore, where he lived for three years, writing and shooting films throughout Asia. Upon his return to the US he’s worked as a cinematographer, writer, and photojournalist, and is currently working on a feature length documentary.

SAGindie Fellows:

Ahmed Qaid. Oakdale, CA

Couples – Drama Feature

Logline: In the early 1990s, a young, newlywed Yemeni couple immigrate to San Francisco in search of a new beginning but quickly find themselves drifting apart due to economic hardships, homesickness, and unattainable aspirations.

Bio: Ahmed Qaid is a Yemeni American writer and photographer. He has a passion for creating complex, authentic, and compassionate works that explore the experiences of Muslim and Arab individuals within contemporary America.

Nina Hodge. Atlanta, GA

The Tale Of Our Totally Not Magical Christmas Sweaters – Comedy Feature

Logline: In the festive days before Christmas, four lifelong friends reunite and discover a long forgotten set of seemingly enchanted Christmas sweaters from their childhood. Will this Yuletide magic be enough to help them overcome family secrets, evolving friendships, and conniving exes in time to have a happy holiday?

Bio: I’m a native of Las Vegas, but I’ve called Atlanta home for years. I grew up obsessed with TV and movies, wanting desperately to live in the experiences of the characters on screen. That love of movies and TV has never left me. In fact, it’s even more profound now. When I watch something, I want to LOVE it like it did when I was a kid. After spending over a decade working in production and production management, I am finally making the leap to the creative side, where I will hopefully create things people will love for their whole lives too.

Sidewalk Film Festival Fellow:

Cara-Lynn Branch. Ontario, Canada

Fletcher: Teen Detective – Drama TV

Logline: A jaded former child detective is pulled back into the sleuthing game by an ex-friend and uncovers that the real secrets are the ones we hide from ourselves.

Bio: Cara-Lynn Branch was destined to become a writer having received her first “notes” when her parents submitted her birth certificate with the name Caralyn only for it to come back Cara-Lynn (though maybe that was “clearances”). A Canadian/US LGBTQ+ writer and 2021 Telefilm New Voices Award recipient, she’s always loved television. Her parents discovered she’d learned to read when she picked up the TV Guide and found Married with Children. At seven, Cara-Lynn created “unspooky” ghost stories at sleepaway camp that became a popular request by campers in the decade that followed. It only made sense that she would eventually combine her two passions, television and storytelling. When Cara-Lynn’s not writing, she can be found making maple syrup, doing archery in her backyard, or drinking hot chocolate.

Sidewalk Film Festival Honorable Mention:

Comika Hartford. Grass Valley, CA / The Cabin – Horror TV

Stowe Story Labs Diverse Voices Fellow:

Christopher Manydeeds. Rockville, MD

An Astronaut Returns – SciFi Feature

Logline: In 2150, Astronaut Robert “Bounce” Turtle returns to earth after being on a 100-year mission, only to find everything changed. Hunted by armed agents and mobs, Robert must go to his home on Standing Rock.

Bio: I am an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. I am embarking on an exciting new career. I am working with the Indian Health Service to assist Tribes’ exercise self-governance for health care. I worked in the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a Deputy Superintendent. I worked for several Tribes as a prosecutor. I worked with Legal Aid on a reservation. I clerked for a judge in northern Minnesota. I was a college recruiter for American Indians. I worked in the fields of law, health, and education all connected with Tribes and Tribal members. I have a Bachelor of Science in Geophysics and a Juris Doctorate law degree. I support Tribal sovereignty and Tribal members. I want to write about American Indians in contemporary and future settings. I am a Lakota Futurist.

Stowe Story Labs Diverse Voices Honorable Mention:

Alan R. Baxter. Valencia, CA / Glacier Point – Thriller TV

Tangerine Entertainment Fellow:

Marni Sullivan. Burbank, CA

Accountable – Drama TV

Logline: An emotionally damaged bounty hunter who captures corporate criminals makes a devil’s deal with the government to find the man who killed her family and destroyed the world’s economy.

Bio: With an extensive background in academic research, combined with two decades of professional and editorial writing experience, Marni has developed a unique voice for screenwriting that addresses ethical issues through relatable characters. Her love of science and cultural heritage is utilized to create thought-provoking premises for her stories. She holds degrees in neuroscience and anthropology from USC, and conducted graduate research in cognitive neurobiology. Marni currently runs a research consulting business that works with entertainment companies, legal firms and academic institutions. She serves as a technical advisor on scientific and historical subjects for features and shorts. She co-wrote a short that won the Cannes Short Film Festival in 2020. In previous years, she won the Grand Prize for the ISA Table Read competition, made Top 3 Finalist in the Final Draft Big Break and was a semi-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowships.

Tangerine Entertainment Honorable Mention:

Margaret Lazarus Dean. Knoxville, TN / The New Guys – Drama TV

University of Vermont Fellow:

Annika Ringen. Burlington, VT

Something Old, Something New – Comedy feature

Logline: Every straight man in his twenties needs that one special lady who can rein him in and get him to settle. And sometimes, that woman is in her seventies.

Bio: Annika Ringen is a student at the University of Vermont where she is an English and Film & Television Studies double major. Her studies concentrate on writing, currently including a full length play she is pursuing for her honors thesis. She has written for The Water Tower, the university’s alternative newspaper and recently wrote and directed a one act play for the University Players’ annual Fringe Festival. Outside of academics Annika plays for the club field hockey team and enjoys skiing and hiking.