Zack Sharf 

New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) and IRIS , a collective of women filmmakers, have officially announced the 10 selected screenwriters who will participate in this year’s The Writers Lab. Now in its second year, The Writers Lab is a program where emerging female screenwriters team up with industry mentors to help develop their screenplays. The lab is open to women over the age of 40 and is funded by Meryl Streep. This year’s participants include:

Carol Carpenter, “The Guadalupe”
Melody Cooper, “The Sound of Darkness”
Meredith DePaolo, “Devil’s Eye””
Nancy Duff, “Dead Drop”
Kate Erickson, “Roll With It”
Tina Field Howe, “Drone War”
Christina Hulen, “A Gentleman of Good Hope”
Christine Toy Johnson, “Jumping the Third Rail”
Nanci Katz-Ellis, “Blink”
Leslie Longworth, “One Bad Astronaut”
Barbara Nunberg, “Willful Blindness”
Stephanie Stanley, “The Radical”

The mentors who will be included in the 2016 Writers Lab are made up of prestigious screenwriters behind female-driven films, including “Maggie’s Plan,” “What Women Want,” and “Legally Blonde.” The mentors include: Alexis Alexanian (“Maggie’s Plan), Jessica Bendinger  (“Bring It On”), Susan Cartsonis (“What Women Want”), Lisa Cortes (“Precious”), Caroline Kaplan  (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”), Mary Jane Skalski (“The Station Agent”), and Kirsten Smith  (“Legally Blond”).

The Writers Lab takes place September 22-25 in the Connecticut River Valley