Your Impact

2022 was quite the year here at the Writers Guild Foundation. We reopened the Shavelson-Webb Library, hosted an in-person Weekend Retreat for the Veterans Writing Project, and partnered with Netflix for an incredible WGFestival. These accomplishments (and more below!) could not have happened without the support of our generous donors—a.k.a. you. To show our thanks, we’d like to share how your support made an impact in 2022.

at a glance

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE

The WGF Library reopened June 1, 2022. Between June and December, more than 1,550 patrons visited the library and requested to read over 3,000 scripts. We also added over 1,000 items to our Library catalog last year. 

The most popular Library reads of 2022 were Abbott Elementary and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

We hosted WGF Library Script Breakdowns on Zoom of King Richard with writer Zach Baylin and CODA with writer Sian Heder. The latter won the WGA Award and the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

WGF Library Script Breakdown with CODA’s Sian Heder

In 2022, we published four new Formatting Your Spec Script blog posts, which helped writers unable to visit the library in-person understand the formatting for 24 new shows. These posts often aid writers who are drafting spec scripts for fellowship applications. We also published two new TV Format Fundamentals blog posts – one on Animated Sitcoms and one on Hallmark Christmas movies. Our blog posts have been viewed over 60,000 times in 2022. 

Collections in the WGF Archive

We processed 14 archival collections totaling 82 boxes of writers’ scripts and papers, including collections from Georgia Jeffries, Veena Sud, Charles Eglee, David Shore, Michael Tolkin, and the families of Mark Soloman, Philip H. Reisman Jr., and Steven Bochco.


PROgRAMS

A workshop during our Veterans Writing Project Weekend Retreat

The Veterans Writing Project 2021-22 cycle finished in May, with 60 graduates completing a screenplay or TV pilot and pitching their work at Pitch Night. More than half received requests to see additional work by industry professionals.

Sixty-eight veterans were accepted into the 2022-23 cycle program and attended the first in-person Weekend Retreat since 2019. Held at the Hollywood American Legion Post 43 in July, over 100 participants, mentors, and volunteers attended.

A few Veterans Writing Project alumni found success in 2022:

The Writers Access Support Staff Training Program (WASSTP) trains writers from underrepresented backgrounds to be writers’ assistants and script coordinators, ultimately resulting in meaningful employment opportunities. We received 1,205 applications in 2022.

Sixteen graduates completed the Fall 2022 cohort. WASSTP participants heard from a variety of guest speakers this year, including Shonda Rhimes, Sera Gamble, Mike Schur, Mike Royce, Tanya Saracho, Justin Halpern, and more. 

If you’re looking to fill a writers’ assistant or script coordinator position with one of our grads, let us know!

New this year: over 30 WGA-enrolled writers signed on as mentors for alumni from the 2022 and 2021 cohorts. These mentors share their insider knowledge and meaningful industry connections that are otherwise inaccessible. Twenty-three alumni were hired to shows in 2022.

The Visiting Writers Program facilitated over 15 educational discussions between WGA writers and classrooms across the country in 2022. Speakers included Rachel Bloom, Walon Green, Eric Heisserer, David Koepp, Courtney Lilly, Meg LeFauve, Steven Levenson, Ilana Peña, Jenny Snyder Urman, and more.

In 2022, we partnered with over 15 organizations including 826LA, Get Lit, The HiveMind Unified, PopShift, The Inevitable Foundation, Library of America, The Writer’s Gang, Puerto Rico Film Commission, Merging Vets and Players, Arts Film and Goods Pantry, New York Stage and Film, Unlock Tomorrow, YEA Impact, Arts in the Armed Forces, Veterans in Media and Entertainment, International Screenwriters Association, and more. Additional information on our community partnerships can be found here.

 

EVENTS

Inside the Writers Zoom with Abbott Elementary

In 2022, we hosted more than 40 virtual events. Our most popular 2022 event recordings are: 

Other highlights include panels on Latino/a/e/x representation in film and TV, NFTs, writing female characters over 50, research methods, and more.  

We also hosted two in-person events, both sponsored by Netflix: 

  • Inspired By…, a panel of writers from Anatomy of a Scandal, Bridgerton, and Maid discussing how they adapted entertaining and powerful stories from page to screen. 

  • WGFestival 2022: An Evening with Netflix, our annual two-day conference featuring top screenwriting talent. This year, the creators of Wednesday, From Scratch, Grace and Frankie, Dead to Me, and Stranger Things spoke about their writing processes and mingled with attendees at a post-panel reception. 

WGFestival 2022: An Evening with Netflix

Altogether, over 15,525 people RSVPed to attend our 2022 events live, and the recordings for those events have more than 40,000 views on our YouTube channel. Our entire YouTube channel received over 415,000 views in 2022. 

In 2022, we enjoyed wonderful partnerships with groups and organizations such as Storyline Partners, Business of Creating, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting. Our events were also supported by partners and sponsors such as Netflix, Final Draft, Variety, The Black List, Coverfly, and Script Anatomy. 


other fun stuff

Boulevard des Séries writers meet with Mike White

  • We hosted a media studies scholar in March and April as he researched a writer’s archival collection extensively for his forthcoming book on the work of television writing.  

  • In May, we connected with screenwriters in Botswana and partnered with a new initiative in Nigeria called Albantsho. Our librarian, Lauren, presented on script formatting at iDraft, an eight-week conference for emerging African screenwriters.  

  • We welcomed Casey Parajon to the team as our new Events and Communications Coordinator in June. If you’ve noticed how much more fun we’ve become on social media in the last year, she’s the reason why!  

  • We partnered with Villa Albertine and the French Consulate for the Boulevard des Séries: The Factory program in October, bringing nine French TV writers and one Quebecois TV writer to Los Angeles for three weeks to learn about the American television industry and meet with writers like Vince Gilligan and Mike White.  

  • In December, journalist Tierney Finster visited the Library and interviewed our librarians for an article in Fodor’s Travel. You can read that article here. 



All statistics as of December 31, 2022.