The only catch is that the newbs have to be connected…and connected pretty damn well.
This just in via LB’s email box and the Writers Guild of America West website:
$25,000 grants for new/emerging TV writers – HUMANITAS New Voices Program
The HUMANITAS New Voices Program awards four new or emerging writers each $25,000 and pairs each with a respected series showrunner to serve as a mentor as they write an original pilot script.
The mission of the New Voices Program is to discover and help launch the careers of talented emerging writers (represented or unrepresented). (Click here for more information)
If you know a new writer who possesses a fresh voice and a unique worldview and whose work reflects the mission of the HUMANITAS organization, please consider recommending him/her.
Applying to the New Voices Program is a two-step process. Candidates must first be recommended by a network or studio executive, a showrunner, a HUMANITAS Trustee or Board of Directors member, agent or manager. (Click here for a recommendation form.)
Ideally recommendation forms should be received the week of April 22nd. (Application deadline is May 1st.)
We appreciate you taking the time to recommend a new writer for this career-launching opportunity.
Best,
Cathleen Young and Carole Kirschner
HUMANITAS
So from this it looks like the hot, talented, ambitious newbie for whom this program is designed can’t even apply him/herself. Instead, our genius newb has to have an executive, showrunner, Humanitas honcho, agent, or manager make the recommendation.
Notice that the closest thing there to a writer being able to do it is a “showrunner,” which is a particular, and particularly rarified, type of writer. At any one time there are what, about 150 actual showrunners working in the biz?
Yes, the Writers Guild of America West has e-mailed this message to all its members, but clearly so they can be helped, not so they can help. Which is nice for them, but not for the fresh out of the Easter Egg beginners who are the ones with careers that haven’t yet been, um, “launched.”
Time to man the phones, kids. Maybe you can cut a deal with an executive, agent, etc. who wouldn’t mind taking a piece of the prize.
Paging Sammy Glick…!