Introducing the Veterans Fellowship Class of 2025!
The Writers Guild Foundation is thrilled to announce the second iteration of our Veterans Fellowship, an intensive mentorship program designed to provide invaluable educational resources, professional guidance, and career-building opportunities for military veterans breaking into the television industry. All six incoming fellows are graduates of WGF’s highly regarded Veterans Writing Project.
The 8-week course begins on March 31st and will conclude in late May. Read more about the 2025 fellows and their mentors below!
Meet the Fellows
Addison Blu
Addison Blu is an L.A.-based writer and military veteran from Atlanta. Addison worked as a private investigator before joining the elite Army Special Operations and deploying to combat in Afghanistan to conduct Psychological Operations. After service, he worked as a marketing strategist, which is like PSYOPs for corporate America. He was recently the Military Consultant for the Hulu series Paradise from Dan Fogelman. Addison writes half-hour and hour TV, always grounded in character and humor.
Addison’s Veterans Fellowship mentor is writer/producer David Weddle (For All Mankind).
Christopher Harris
A Gen Xer and self-proclaimed super nerd, Christopher David Harris is a gay screenwriter who writes fun, quippy, and inclusive sci-fi/fantasy television and features. An Air Force veteran who enlisted as a vocalist and served for nearly a decade, his personal journey inspires him to focus on themes of religious and family trauma, connection, and finding your path.
Christopher’s Veterans Fellowship mentor is writer/producer Craig Sweeny (Watson).
LeVonda Lee
Levonda's storytelling journey began when she wrote and directed plays for Black History Month to heal her military community. While honing her screenwriting skills, she rose through the ranks as a Space Surveillance Officer. She earned an MFA from USC's screenwriting program. Levonda co-founded Duffel Bag Productions, a military veteran-owned company that creates art that reflects dynamic experiences and diverse worldviews for television, film, and multimedia platforms.
LeVonda’s Veterans Fellowship mentor is writer/producer Hart Hanson (Bones).
Corinthian Maldonado
Corinthian was born in Brooklyn, New York, but after his parents split, it felt like he lived everywhere… so to keep the trend going, he joined the Air Force in 2011. He spent time all over the U.S. and overseas. Over the years, he worked for General Officers and later served as a Public Health Tech during the pandemic. But it was during his first tour in Kuwait that he discovered his true passion for writing. Fourteen years later, he hasn’t stopped. A recent graduate of the Veterans Writing Project, Corinthian is an hour-long TV drama writer who tells stories about loss, searching for home, and what it means to belong despite what others might think.
Corinthian’s Veterans Fellowship mentor is Emmy-nominated writer/producer Stefani Robinson (Atlanta).
RJ Palisoc
RJ Palisoc is a crime drama writer who grew up in 90’s gangland Los Angeles. Seeking a way out, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy right out of high school where he gained more perspective on the human experience. Now a veteran, he hones these experiences into writing authentic characters who navigate through the blurred lines of morality. He’s built a career as a Producer, working with Marvel, Netflix, and now Sony, and was selected for the 2025 WGF Veterans Fellowship.
RJ’s Veterans Fellowship mentor is writer/producer Kyle Harimoto (NCIS: Los Angeles).
Anthony Pittore
From high-stakes gambling at mob casinos to high-stakes briefings for President Obama, Anthony Pittore has never chosen a life of predictability. After funding college at the poker table, he fulfilled a family obligation to join the Navy, working as a cryptologic linguist until his medical retirement. He resigned from his civilian position as an NSA intelligence analyst following the 2016 election, shifting to the film & TV industry to bring his wilder-than-fiction experiences to the screen.
Anthony’s Veterans Fellowship mentor is Emmy-winning writer/producer Kira Snyder (The Handmaid’s Tale, For All Mankind).
Meet the Mentors
Hart Hanson
Hart Hanson is best known for creating the Fox television series “Bones”, which ran for 12 seasons, making “Bones” the longest-running scripted hour-long series in Fox history.
Hart started writing television in his native Canada, in Vancouver, writing for the iconic CBC television series “The Beachcombers” followed by many other Canadian TV shows including Neon Rider, The Odyssey, Road to Avonlea, Ready Or Not, Street Legal, The Outer Limits, and Stargate SG-1 – after which he created the Gemini-Award-winning Global Television series “Traders”.
Following “Traders”, Hart thought what the hell, he’d try Hollywood. Hart rose through the ranks of American TV shows including Cupid, Snoops, Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia, after which he created “Bones” and the Fox TV series “The Finder” and “Backstrom”.
Hart wrote several other pilots which were either not picked up to series or not shot at all, which also seems more than fair.
There were some of the usual awards along the way but many more nominations than wins, which also seems more than fair.
Hart is the author of “The Driver”, a novel published by Dutton Books in August 2017. “The Driver” was featured on many “Best of” lists including the New York Time’s “Best Crime Novels of 2017” and garnered starred reviews from Booklist, iBooks, and Library Journal. His second novel “The Seminarian” was published by Blackstone in 2024 and is currently in development as a TV series with Sony Studios.
Hart has various other TV projects in various stages of development. Like everybody.
Hart and his wife, Brigitte, split their time between Venice Beach and San Francisco.
Kyle Harimoto
Kyle Harimoto began his career in the Agent Training Program at United Talent Agency after receiving his M.B.A. from the University of Illinois. He started his professional writing career in 2003 with a Drama Pilot for The USA Network and was then hired as a Writer on NBC’s LAS VEGAS. Harimoto has sold Pilots to MAX, FreeVee, 20th, Universal TV, Amazon, Peacock, CBS, The CW and SPIKE TV. He was a writer for the ESPN mini-series THE BRONX IS BURNING. In addition to television work Harimoto has written a Video Game for Midway (XBOX / PLAYSTATION) along with selling and optioning two Feature Screenplays. Harimoto is a graduate of the WGA Showrunner Training Program. He also co-created the WGA Staff Writer Bootcamp which has educated over 900 recently hired Hollywood Television Writers. In 2017, he taught a master class in screenwriting and producing at the University of Hawai’i West O’ahu and is currently on the Board of Directors for the non-profit, Determined To Succeed.
Harimoto wrote and produced on the first three seasons of HAWAII FIVE-0 and was most recently an Executive Producer on the hit CBS drama NCIS: LOS ANGELES for ten seasons. He lives in the South Bay with his Wife and Son and credits the time he spends at Kron Gracie Jiu Jitsu and in the ocean for allowing him to deal with Hollywood.
Stefani Robinson
Stefani Robinson is an Emmy®-nominated Writer and Executive Producer. She served as an Executive Producer and Writer on the critically-acclaimed comedy series “Atlanta.” In 2018 she made Emmy history as the first Black woman to be recognized for nominations in both “Outstanding Comedy Series” and “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series” categories in the same year.
Robinson also served as an Executive Producer and Writer on the hit comedy “What We Do in the Shadows.” Her work on the second and third seasons garnered her additional Emmy nominations in the same two comedy categories in 2020 and again in 2022.
Her additional television credits include Supervising Producer and Writer on the fourth installment of the Golden Globe® and Emmy award-winning limited series “Fargo.”
Robinson made her feature film debut as Writer and Producer of CHEVALIER, released by Searchlight Pictures in 2023. She is currently serving as Showrunner for FX’s upcoming comedy series “Adults.”
Kira Snyder
Kira Snyder is an Emmy-winning writer and producer. She most recently was Executive Producer on Season 5 of For All Mankind, Apple TV+’s groundbreaking alternate history drama. Prior to joining FAM, she had an overall deal at HBO where she was Consulting Producer on the acclaimed limited series The Penguin and collaborated with J.J. Abrams on his sci-fi epic Demimonde. Kira was a writer and producer on The Handmaid’s Tale for Hulu, for which she received an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a PGA Award, and two WGA Awards. Kira also was nominated for the Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series Emmy, the Episodic Drama WGA Award, and the USC Scripter Award for episodes she wrote. Her other film and television work includes the feature film Pacific Rim: Uprising, The 100 on the CW, Syfy’s Eureka and Alphas, the CBS vampire cult hit Moonlight, and pilot scripts for Hulu, FX, Sony, Disney+, and Amazon. The Dead Letter Office ebooks, Kira’s interactive Young Adult supernatural mystery series, are available for Kindle. Formerly a computer game designer, Kira created games for Microsoft, the MIT Press textbook Rules Of Play, and Electronic Arts, including the seminal, award-winning alternate reality game Majestic. Kira grew up in a Navy family and is a longtime mentor with the Veterans Writing Project at the Writers’ Guild Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two black cats.
Craig Sweeny
Craig Sweeny is the creator and showrunner of the new CBS TV series WATSON. Prior to that, he created and ran the CBS TV series LIMITLESS and THE CODE. Sweeny had long runs on the hit shows ELEMENTARY and MEDIUM, serving as Executive Producer on both. Other credits include STAR TREK: SECTION 31, THE 4400 and PLAYMAKERS. He has also directed for MEDIUM and THE CODE.
A native of Pittsburgh, Sweeny attended Colgate University where he received a BA in English Literature. After a stint in book publishing, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a writing career in 2001. In his free time, Craig volunteers visiting patients at Torrance Memorial Hospice and reviews heavy metal albums at angrymetalguy.com under a top-secret pseudonym.
David Weddle
David Weddle has served as a writer-producer on such series as: For All Mankind, The Strain, Battlestar Galactica, CSI, and Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
He wrote a critically acclaimed biography, "If They Move... Kill 'Em!" The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah, and a Best Selling book about Beverly Hills, Among the Mansions of Eden.
He has also written for such publications as: Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, California Magazine, and L.A. Weekly.
