From a media release:
The Toronto Screenwriting Conference (TSC) today announced the five winners of the first annual Magee TV Diverse Screenwriters Mentorship Award, a mentorship and bursary program that was created to help emerging and mid-level screenwriters from diverse backgrounds to be mentored, network with other Canadian television professionals and be exposed to other leaders in the field of screen-based writing.
To achieve this objective – each of the five winners including Anil Kamal, Mackenzie Sinclair, Marsha Mason, Maya Bastian and Nadia Alam will receive a complimentary registration for the highly anticipated two-day conference that takes place in Toronto over the weekend of April 22-23. The winners will also join Al Magee, founder of Magee TV, a producer, writer and story editor with a long history of mentorship, for a pre-conference meet up in addition to each receiving a three-month mentorship with Canadian screenwriting professionals that include Alejandro Alcoba, Desmond Sargeant, Duana Taha, Pat Mills and Renuka Jeyapalan. Click HERE to see the bios for the winners and click HERE to see the bios for their chosen mentors.
The winners were chosen by their mentors based on submissions that included the following four criteria: one concept for an original series or feature film, one writing sample, a letter of interest and intent and a letter of reference.
The TSC also announced today the official selection of participants who will join co-creators Ins Choi and Kevin White of CBC’s runaway hit, Kim’s Convenience, in support of this years WGC Writing Room Intensive. Amy Cole, Elize Morgan, Gillian Muller, Jennifer Siddle, Marcia Johnson, Richard Clark, Lisa Rose Snow and Derek Robertson will all work alongside Ins and Kevin in a mock writers room on Thursday, April 20th. The team will then reconvene on stage at the conference for a special session on Saturday, April 22nd where they will finish the process of breaking story in the room in front of the TSC delegates. Click HERE to see the bios for each participant.
The Writing Room Intensive participants were selected through a juried process and all who entered for consideration were required to meet certain qualifications including relevant experience (either past or present) working on a television series as either a story coordinator, staff writer, story editor, producer, executive producer, creator and/or showrunner.
The Toronto Screenwriting Conference runs April 22-23, 2017. Get the latest information—including events and how to register—on the official website.
It’s weird that some of these “winners” are (relatively) established writers.
The conference isn’t designed for writers who are new or trying to break in to the business. It’s for writers who have experience already and want to sharpen their skills.