Author: Ian Skorodin

Meilani Wenska

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

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

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

Sabrina Saleha is a Navajo screenwriter and actress. She is an alumna of 2023 ImagineNative’s Screenwriting Features Lab and 2022 LA Skinsfest Native American Media Alliance’s TV Writer’s Lab. Sabrina graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting from the Institute of American Indian Arts in May 2023, having received a scholarship from Warner… Read more »

Justin H. Reed

Justin H. 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 Randall

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

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

Charine Pilar Gonzales is a Tewa filmmaker from San Ildefonso Pueblo and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her esteemed short doc Our Quiyo: Maria Martinez (2022) premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and was acquired by AT&T and Comcast Xfinity, and is currently exhibited at the Millicent Rogers Museum. Charine’s debut… Read more »

Benjamin Flores

Benjamin Flores is a writer, filmmaker, and performer from Idaho. He is a proud member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and a Tsimshian descendent. He was selected as a fellow in the 2022 Native American Media Alliance TV Writers Lab, and is currently staffed on an upcoming hour-long show on STARZ. His comedy-horror… Read more »

Jena Carter

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 »