The Writers Guild Foundation teams up with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for a conversation about writing female characters in leadership roles. We’ll explore how writers develop these strong leads, where they find inspiration for particular characters, and how they draw from various styles of leadership to inform their approach.
Panelists include:
Alexandra Fernandez - Station 19
Joan Rater - A Small Light
Zora Bikangaga - The First Lady
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch, Executive Director, Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting.
Attendees have the option to join us in person at the WGAW HQ or through our Zoom livestream. RSVP for our in person event with a $5 or $10 donation. Livestream tickets can be reserved for free or with a suggested donation. All proceeds go towards producing future panels and events.
Doors open at 6:30 pm.
If you sign up for our livestream, you’ll receive information on how to access the stream via email.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at events@wgfoundation.org.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
About The Panelists
Alexandra Fernandez is a Mexican-American writer born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Lincoln Heights. While attending Stephens College for her MFA, she won the Pilot Competition at the 2019 Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival with her pilot, HappyLand – inspired by her time working as a ride-operator at Universal Studios.
Soon after graduating, Alex was hired into Shondaland’s firefighter drama, Station 19, as a writer's PA for season 3. After surviving a year as a PA, she was promoted to Research Assistant for season 4 and pitched a number of stories and incidents that made it to screen. In season 5 of Station 19, Alex wrote her very first freelance episode for the series and eventually was promoted to Staff Writer for season 6. During season 7, Alex became a Story Editor and had the honor of co-writing the series’s 100th episode during its final season.
After joining “Grey’s Anatomy” as a writing team at the start of season 2, Tony Phelan and Joan Rater rose through the ranks and co-ran the show alongside creator Shonda Rhimes forseasons 7 through 10. Over their nine seasons they wrote eighteen episodes. For their work on “Grey’s Anatomy” they earned a WGA Award for Best New Series in Television in 2005 and were nominated for two Emmy Awards in 2006 and 2007, both for "Outstanding Drama Series."
Since 2016, Phelan and Rater have been developing and running their own shows including“Council of Dads” for NBC, “Doubt” for CBS, and the eight-episode NatGeo limited drama series, “A Small Light,” for which they won the Humanitas Prize in Limited Series, the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Series - Over 40 Minutes, and received the TV Academy Honors for Scripted Television.
"A Small Light" premiered on NatGeo May 1, 2023 and is currently streaming all 8 episodes on Hulu and Disney+.
Phelan and Rater also co-created and currently serve as executive producers on CBS’ hit Friday night drama “Fire Country,” which is currently in production on its third season, and its spin-off drama “Sheriff Country,” also for CBS and recently picked up to series for the 2025/26 broadcast season.
Zora Bikangaga grew up the only Ugandan kid in small-town Northern California (which is a whole other story). After being a full-time 7th grade US History & Government teacher, he took a hard pivot to pursue a different kind of comedy. Zora’s writing credits include I LOVE THAT FOR YOU (SHOWTIME), GHOSTS (CBS), THE FIRST LADY (SHOWTIME), and ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST (NBC). His acting credits include I LOVE THAT FOR YOU, DRUNK HISTORY, KROLL SHOW, and he starred alongside Sarah Hyland, Tyler James Williams, and Wanda Sykes in the romantic comedy, THE WEDDING YEAR. As a storyteller, Zora’s infamous college prank tale was featured in an episode of THIS AMERICAN LIFE.
About the Moderator
Rosanne Welch, Phd, serves as Executive Director of Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting where she created a set of History of Screenwriting courses. Her television writing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. Welch edited When Women Wrote Hollywood (2018), named runner up for the Susan Koppelman Award honoring the best anthology, multi-authored, or edited book in feminist studies by the Popular Culture Association. She co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia (named to both the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List and to the list of Best Historical Materials, by the American Library Association); co-wrote American Women’s History on Film (2023) and wrote Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Popular Culture(2016) and American Women’s History on Film (20230. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting; and on the Editorial Board for the California History Journal. In 2022 she was elected to Chair the Executive Committee of the International Screenwriting Research Network for two-year term. You can find her talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” from the TEDxCPP here and other recorded lectures on her YouTube Channel here.