Author: Ian Skorodin

Meilani Wenska is an award-winning Native Hawaiian screenwriter, filmmaker and actor who creates projects that dispel stereotypes and misinformation about Hawaiian culture to raise awareness on the commodification of Hawaiian land and culture. She has written multiple features and pilots, and her second feature was a semi-finalist in Final Cut’s Big Break contest. As a… Read more »

Kaili Y. Turner is a Black Indian (Nipmuc), comedian, actress, writer, producer, and puppeteer whom received her MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School. Kaili’s pilot Fk’d Up & Fabulous is streaming on the Tenoir TV app, and her play Indian Country was a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill playwrights conference. She’s also creator of… Read more »

Eagle Smith, born in Ketchikan, AK. Fka Kat Smith. Eagle had the good fortune of growing up during the Summers of her childhood in her hometown, Metlakatla, Alaska, and her school years in the Seattle area. As she puts it, “one foot on the reservation, one foot off.” Her continued ambition for storytelling is accredited… Read more »

Sabrina Saleha is a Navajo (Diné), Todích’íí’nii clan and Bangladeshi-American storyteller. She is a screenwriter, who has written and produced her short films. And an actress whose credits include upcoming Netflix, Sony Original TV series and several indie films. Screenwriting is a second-act career. After graduating from North Carolina State University with a Business Degree, she worked in… Read more »

Justin Hunter Reed is a Salishan writer and producer from the Confederated Salish& Kootenai Tribes. Ever since he was conceived on the Flathead Indian reservation in Montana and born on a U.S. Army base in Kansas, he has been a devout adherent of the Church of Irony. A semi-misspent youth isolating himself practicing and playing… Read more »

Cole discovered a love for writing after watching the performance of a one-act play he wrote in high school. He followed his passion to Emerson College where he graduated with a BFA in Comedic Arts. While attending Emerson, he had the wonderful opportunity to write a feature script, a pilot, a spec script, a web… Read more »

Kelli Jones grew up in the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She joined the navy when she was 18 where she served as a master helmsman onboard the USS Ronald Reagan. During her service, Kelli was deployed twice to the Gulf of Oman and acted as a first responder to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in… Read more »

Charine Pilar Gonzales (San Ildefonso Pueblo) is a Tewa writer/director. She enjoys producing a wide range of artistic and impactful films, including live-action narrative fiction, short docs, and stop motion projects. She’s currently in post-production for her short narrative fiction film River Bank, a modern interpretation of robin hood where a young Tewa woman gives… Read more »

Benjamin Flores is a writer, filmmaker, and performer from Idaho and a proud member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. His screen-animated comedy-horror short “One Gotta Go” was recently featured in the AV Club’s “Great Job, Internet!,” his humor writing has been published in the New Yorker online, and his podcast “Please Save Me”… Read more »

Jena Carter (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is a writer based in Los Angeles. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community who hails from a mixed Native, Ashkenazi Jewish & Caucasian background, much of their work explores themes of gender roles, sexuality and orientation, femme identity and the complexities around a diverse background; they often weave… Read more »