WeForShe
A women's advocacy group that finds practical ways to bring about a gender-balanced landscape in television.
The WriteHer List
The WriterHer list is a go-to resource for industry-vetted, quality female-driven scripts available for television. We reach out to some of the most successful names in development (heads of networks, showrunners, directors, and producers) and ask them to submit for consideration their favorite unproduced television scripts written by women with significant roles for women.
In the 2014-15 television season, women comprised only 23% of series creators and only 26% of all on-staff writers. WeForShe is proud to present the 2016 WriteHer List to help improve these statistics to reflect the breadth and quality of available female-driven material on television. Culled from hundreds of nominations, the 2016 WriteHer List features 16 scripts that are all, in some capacity, available to be developed. Where we were able to confirm additional rights holders, it was noted. Scripts are listed in alphabetical order.
Congratulations to the writers and thank you to all the amazing individuals who participated in the list!Below is the WriteHer List’s 16 for 2016.
You can also read about the list in Deadline.
The WriteHer List 2016
THE CHOSEN
by Julie Richardson
A notorious criminal defense attorney is delivered the sacred Book of Life, thought to exist only in legend, that hides within its text an ancient code. Pre-ordained to decipher this code, the reluctant attorney struggles to stop a series of events that will ultimately lead to the destruction of mankind.
Contact: Jeff Field at Field Entertainment
Genre: One Hour Drama
THE DARK PIECES
by Naomi McDougall Jones
Follows the descent of a 49-year-old mother, wife, and veterinarian from Aspen, Colorado as she evolves into a serial killer and the suicidal policewoman whose life is saved by the serpentine case.
Contact: Joanne Zippel - Zip Creative
Genre: One Hour Drama
DIARY OF A SOCIOPATH
by Valerie A. Brotski
Dana Strausse moves to a town in Nebraska with the lowest population hoping her isolation from people will keep her sociopathic impulses at bay, but when the other inhabitant dies suddenly and a tour bus rolls into the alleged Gold Rush watering hole, Dana finds it difficult to keep her hands to herself.
Contact: Noah Jones at Gersh
Genre: Half Hour Comedy
A dark, sexy, bitingly feminist take on the world of a young woman who rubbed up against her own time – a distant period
that in some painful, hilarious ways, doesn’t seem so different from our own.
Contact: Christopher Licata at Paradigm
Genre: Half Hour Comedy
DICKINSON
by Alena Smith
DISCIPLES
by Blair Butler
DOUGLASS HEIGHTS
by Leah Keith
A cop gets pulled into a serial occult murder which plays out over years and years eventually finding its way to his own family.
Contact: Lars Theriot at ICM
Genre: One Hour Drama
DUST
by Joy Blake
Set in Atlanta, Georgia during the turbulence of the early 1960s, it chronicles the dramatic highs and lows of the wealthy heads of a burgeoning African-American real estate dynasty, as they create the elegant utopian community that they call home. Loyalties are tested, secrets come to light, and passions flare as the community rises in popularity.
Contact: Ian Greenstein at Gersh
Genre: One Hour Drama
Combining action, conspiracy, and romance - a young woman fights for her family, her land, and her very life in the midst of the largest, government-created, environmental disaster in our country's history.
Contact: Peter Miceli, Tom Young, and Chelsea Reed at CAA
Genre: One Hour Drama
HARMONY
by Sara B. Cooper
After a devastating loss, a young woman on a spiritual journey is called to settle in conservative Minnesota, believing her job is to raise the consciousness of the close minded people of the town.
Contact: Ian Greenstein at Gersh
Genre: One Hour Dramedy
HOW TO HATE YOURSELF
by Laura House
A young woman working in the world of self-help battles her inner voice of self-hate.
Contact: Jack Leighton at APA
Genre: Half Hour Comedy
THE HUNTER AND THE MYSTIC
by Whitney Hamilton
A crime drama following a backwoods Alabama detective and an intuitive searching for a missing girl who ultimately join forces.
Contact: Sylvia Caminer at Dolger Films
Genre: One Hour Drama
LINEAGE
by Marlana Hope
Three generations of women within two families, one black and one white, are brought together through changes in perceptions of race, gender and age over the last fifty years.
Contact: Zadoc Angell at Echo Lake Entertainment
Genre: One Hour Drama
MAYBE TOMORROW
by Hayley Tyler
RABBIT WARREN
by Vivian Tse
A family's lives are upended when their high-achieving daughter attempts suicide. Everyone is convinced they know how to "fix" her, but their own long-overlooked dysfunctions soon get in the way.
Contact: Ryan Draizin at WME
Genre: Half Hour Dark Comedy
RED LINE
by Caitlin Parrish & Erica Weiss
In a future world where humans have altered their bodies in order to survive drought and famine, an ambitious federal agent and a local doctor play a dangerous game of deception in order to uncover the truth about what really happened to humanity and why its last hope for survival is being kept a secret.
Contact: Vivian Tse - viviantse@me.com
Genre: One Hour Drama
Still recovering from his husband’s death, high-school history teacher Noah tries to rebuild his rocky relationship with their adopted African-American teenage daughter, Jira, while grappling with her desire to find her birth mother.
Contact: Chris Licata and Mark Ross at Paradigm
Genre: One Hour Drama
Rights with Warner Bros.
WE PEAKED IN 8TH GRADE
by Julia Lillis
When three lifelong best friends in their 30s realize they peaked in 8th grade, they set out to "repeak" at a New Kids on the Block reunion concert.
Contact: Zac Simmons at Paradigm
Genre: Half Hour Comedy
YANK
by Marin Gazzaniga
On the run from the Mumbai mob, Bollywood Princess Mira Vijay has to start over in New York as a bikini waxpert.
Contact: Marin Gazzaniga - maringazz@gmail.com
Genre: One Hour Dramedy
Ones to Watch
Although there was not room for them on the list's 16 for 2016, the following unique voices and stories are presented for additional consideration.
FREE SKATE
by Caitlin McCarthy
When an injury ends the pursuit of Olympic glory for a talented but poor teenage singles skater, she joins a traveling ice show as a pairs partner to pay off her coach -- and discovers that Olympic gold may not be out of reach after all.
Contact: Caitlin McCarthy - www.caitlinmccarthy.com
Genre: One Hour Dramedy
ROYALLY SCREWED
by Ari Berkowitz
BROAD CITY meets FROZEN in this animated pilot about sex, love and feminism in the land of fairytales.
Contact: Jacquie Katz at CAA
Genre: Half Hour Comedy
SHADOW
by Yvonne Slaten
A forensic psychologist, haunted and unraveling because of her turbulent past, works with a pair of troubled girls who have come under the spell of a mysterious figure.
Contact: Yvonne Slaten - yvonneska@yahoo.com
Genre: Half Hour Drama
SUNDOWN
by Scarlette Bennett Tapp
& Nikki Braendlin
A serialized thriller centered around Shae Conner, the head of the investigative arm of a civil rights group that infiltrates and dismantles America’s vilest hate groups.
Contact: Eleonore Dailly - edailly@gmail.com
Genre: One Hour Drama
UNIQUE STATE OF MIND
by Thembi Banks & Rochee Jeffrey
Unique Austin is a Wall Street analyst by day and rapper by night. When her music career kicks into high gear, she decides to pursue her dream full time and take on the male-dominated world of Hip Hop.
Contact: Rochee Jeffrey - rocheejeffrey@gmail.com and Thembi Banks - thembi.banks@gmail.com
Genre: One Hour Drama
VERBATIM
by Sydney Mitchell
A haunted legal transcriber begins to track the criminals from her cases, and as the line between the hunter and the hunted starts to blur, she realizes that the key to her survival lies in her troubled past.
Contact: Manal Hammad - Abrams Artists
Genre: One hour Drama
WeForShe evaluated material based on several criteria, including number of nominations, uniqueness of the roles given to female characters, competency of writing, diversity of the entire cast, break-out potential of the writer, and if the script passed the Bechdel Test.