Meet Hollywood's Top 100 'Young and Hungry' New Writers
Keep an eye out for these up-and-comers.
Every year, the Tracking Board scours Hollywood for its most promising up-and-coming writers. Leaving no stones unturned, the publication reaches out to agents, managers, production companies, and other Hollywood insiders in search of the next generation of Tinseltown scribes.
The 2016 list, titled the Young and Hungry and released today, showcases 100 emerging and established writers who "share one thing: the unrelenting drive to make their mark."
Some of the writers have already played in the big leagues—Bryan Sipe, for example, wrote Demolition, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert wrote Swiss Army Man, and Noah Oppenheim wrote the upcoming biopic Jackie—but many of the writers' credits are conspicuously absent from Google, indicating that they are currently in development.
Though 18 writers on the list do not yet have agents, most do. UTA reps 18, with CAA and Paradigm Talent Agency tying for second place at 12.
The writers were discovered in various ways: some, such as Akilah Green, were Sundance Lab finalists; others, like Mattson Tomlin, found recognition through the Nicholls Fellowship; still others, such as Ali Segal, had careers as journalists before writing a spec script. Many of these writers have had scripts appear on The Black List. There's even a former Game of Thrones showrunner's assistant (Kate Gritmon), a Perez Hilton deserter (Rachel Koller), and an Instagram celebrity (Caroline Goldfarb, who runs OfficialSeanPenn) represented. And there's a David Lynch on the list—though it's not that one.
The list doesn't merely include screenwriters; there are nearly an equal number of television writers, such as Chantelle Wells, writer of Jane the Virgin, and John Esposito, writer of The Walking Dead. Also of note is the list's inclusion of female writers despite their underrepresentation in the industry. (Just 15% of screenwriters are women, according to a Writer's Guild of America 2014 report.)
Explore the full 2016 Young and Hungry list here.
Top photo credit: 2016 Slamdance Film Festival, "Buddymoon," written by Alex Simmons, David Giuntoli, and Flula Borg, all of whom appear on the list.
