Meet Our 2025 Writing Fellows

Plus a brief exhortation on why it's vital to jumpstart a generation of post-partisan storytellers

Greetings, Story Rulers!

Five years ago, we founded the Story Incubator Writing Lab with the express aim of supporting storytellers working to achieve cultural repair in an era of ever-widening polarization. Since then, we’ve evolved into a mission-driven creative development agency operating in the nonprofit space.

Every spring, we welcome a new class of writing fellows. Each is crafting an original, commercially viable film or television project with the potential to bring Americans together despite our deep ideological divisions. During the course of their fellowships, our fellows will perfect their scripts, refine their pitches, and prepare to take their projects to market. 

I’m honored to introduce you to the Story Incubator Writing Lab’s 2025 writing fellows, and also to tell you a bit more about the work we’re doing to support great rising writers telling the kinds of stories we urgently need in our divided, angry world.

I. Meet the Fellows

Story Incubator Writing Fellowships enable writers to step away from their regular work commitments in order to focus exclusively on their projects. They are, in other words, gifts of time and focus, and they represent the Lab’s commitment to offering writers a kind of support they cannot find anywhere else.

Our new fellows are poised to use that gift to great effect.

Chris and Charlie Frazier have written for both TV and film. They often center their stories on characters with disabilities, rooted in their own misadventures living with cystic fibrosis. They got their start after selling their TV series FLINCH to USA Network, and have developed both television and features with Warner Brothers, Fox, Sony, and MGM, among others. Currently, they’re developing the holiday action-comedy A HITMAN’S CHRISTMAS with Todd Garner’s Broken Road Productions and Derek Kolstad producing.

During their Story Incubator fellowship, Chris and Charlie will work on UNTETHERED, a docucomedy set in a small mountain town one year after Earth lost gravity for ten minutes and most of humanity floated into space. Crafted with a NORTHERN EXPOSURE vibe by way of Mike Schur, the series focuses on how the survivors -- most of whom were either injured or disabled in the event -- come together to rebuild.

Chris Frazier

Charlie Frazier

Cristina Pippa is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker. Her short film CURTAIN premiered at New York CineFest, and her film AMELIA premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival’s TIFF Kids and won the Golden Gateway Award at the Mumbai Film Festival. Cristina completed her BA at Columbia University and her MFA at the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop. She is the Director of the MFA in Dramatic Writing at MSU and an Artist in Residence at 92NY with collaborator Sharon Kenny, where their musical adaptation of THE TEMPEST was recommended by THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Cristina will devote her Story Incubator fellowship to LADY EM, a dramatic series about a teenaged descendant of Macbeth who discovers she has the power to change the fate of her politically divided state.

Cristina Pippa

Jeremiah Lewis is a writer and producer who grew up in the backwoods of Tidewater Virginia, and fell in love with movies through Humphrey Bogart detective films, Marx Brothers comedies, and Ridley Scott's ALIEN. He is repped at Range Media and is currently in development on a feature with Temple Hill Entertainment. He also has a number of other scripts under shopping agreements and options. 

During his fellowship, Jeremiah will complete A THEORY OF WOLVES, a dramatic feature about an indigenous Idaho sheriff who must navigate community division and political corruption when the reintroduction of wolves angers ranchers, outrages developers, and leads to murder.

Jeremiah Lewis

Nicolas Delgado de la Camara felt moviemaking’s call at a very early age. When he saw JURASSIC PARK for the first time, he knew he wanted to tell stories for the rest of his life. After graduating from the University of Madrid with a BA in English literature, he attended USC School of Cinematic Arts where he was mentored by director Robert Zemeckis. His short film, THE MACABRE WORLD OF LAVENDER WILLIAMS, starring Christopher Lloyd and John Lithgow, screened in over 40 film festivals worldwide and took Nick on a tour around the world. In 2020, Nick was one of six writers selected for the Universal Writers Program, where he wrote two feature screenplays for the studio. He splits his time between Madrid and Los Angeles where he is developing several projects, all crowd-pleasing genre films about families coming together in larger-than-life worlds.

Nick’s fellowship will support his work on QUANTUM BANDITS, a sci-fi celebration of the American Dream in the grand tradition of 80s and 90s cinema.

Nick Delgado

II. What exactly is the Story Incubator Writing Lab?

The Story Incubator Writing Lab gathers writers working on film and television projects that can unite Americans around the values that bring out the best in us—community, individual rights, collaboration, and entrepreneurship—while attaining mainstream commercial success and the massive audience penetration required for real change.

We’re bringing together talented, rising screenwriters working on film and television projects that can catalyze the cultural repair we so urgently need right now. Every one of our writers is working on a project with the potential to become a commercial success — and so to achieve the audience penetration needed for real and lasting cultural change.

No one else does what we do. We are entirely unique, and critically necessary. As one member of our fall 2024 Lab put it, “There’s no other lab out there like this one.”

Each fall, we gather a small cohort of extraordinary working screenwriters for our virtual writing lab. Every participant is a skilled and experienced working writer or writer/director who is poised to break out. Many are also directors, producers, and editors. All are making their living in the uniquely grueling entertainment industry, and all are at a critical career tipping point: Each needs make that one film or series that changes everything for their future, while at the same time changing the world.

At the Lab’s conclusion, participants may apply for a Story Incubator Screenwriting Fellowship to support continued work on their project. Fellows receive a monthly stipend and work closely with us to complete and perfect their scripts, decks, and pitches. We position each fellow to secure financing and/or sign with a top production partner, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that their project is beautifully produced and widely distributed.

Throughout the phases of the Lab, we work closely with our fellows, functioning variously as story consultants, educators, creative coaches, and sometimes, as one Fellow put it, “artistic fairy godparents.” Where possible, we do this work in partnership with our fellows’ managers and agents, so as to give their projects the best possible chance of being financed, produced, and distributed.

Altogether, the Story Incubator Writing Lab creates a high-impact domino effect that facilitates an enormous potential return on both commercial and cultural investment.

And now: a little bit more about the Story Incubator Writing Lab itself.

Happy to share our annual report — just ask!

III. The Lab Is Jumpstarting Careers and Catalyzing Change

Our Writing Lab and Fellowship Program are developing a stellar reputation – as one studio executive said, it’s “the best in the industry.”

Since 2020, we’ve run 90 customized writing workshops and 12 seminars on the neuroscience of storytelling. We’ve supported 57 screenwriters and have awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in writing fellowships, enabling 29 writers to step away from their day jobs and devote 64 months — as in, over five whole years — of time to their craft.

It’s working.

Story Incubator Writing Fellows are winning top awards — including the Nicholl Prize, the world’s most prestigious screenwriting contest. Our fellows are signing with managers and agents, optioning their work to producers, attaching A-list talent, and starting their own companies. Story Incubator-supported projects are also attracting the interest of world-class studios — I can’t name them here, because confidentiality, but trust me, you know the names.

What I can do is share what our fellows have to say about the impact of the Lab on their work and careers.

“I’ve participated in esteemed programs with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Sundance Institute. None offered me the guidance and mentorship of the Story Incubator. The Lab gave me a perspective on my writing that I wouldn’t have gained anywhere else in the industry.”

—Brian Robau, writer/director, two-time Student Academy Award winner

“I worked twice with Erin on my feature screenplay Shelter Animal, years apart. The first time I worked with her I made Top 50 in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Nicholl Fellowship, out of roughly 8,000 script submissions. The second time we worked together I became a Nicholl Fellow, leading to dozens of requests from the top literary managers and producers in Hollywood to read. Their response has been phenomenal.”

— R.J. Daniel Hanna, writer/director, winner of the 2021 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship

“I have done about a dozen writer's labs, and I have never encountered one like what Erin and Maurice are offering. The freedom from judgment, the extremely high-level discussion, and the rigor of the notes makes for one of the best Labs currently available. This is sorely needed. Writers must be encouraged to be rebels, dissenters, and to be guided by their own minds, hearts, and curiosities so that we do not merely become a society in which we all just tell each other what we think we want to hear. By doing this Lab, I feel I've regained a sense of my own mission.”

—Vivian Kerr, writer/director/actor

“Erin and Maurice are working very hard to make this Lab particularly meaningful … It is focused and intense, and it does precisely what’s needed in order to help us move forward at this stage. I strongly believe [the Story Incubator Writing Lab] will ultimately help change the conversation downstream.”

—Anne Fortier, New York Times bestselling author

IV. Apply Now for Fall 2025

Our 2025 Lab will run from September through December. We hold all Labs virtually over Zoom, involving one hour-long meeting each week. Every participant will present their work to the group twice for robust workshopping and troubleshooting. We will also devote several sessions to the neuroscience of storytelling and techniques for crafting high-impact post-partisan stories. Participants receive a small stipend to support their work during the Lab.

We are currently accepting applications for our fall 2025 writing lab. If you or someone you know would like to be considered, please or drop us a line. The deadline for proposals is Friday, May 23.

V. Join us!

The Story Incubator Writing Lab is young — we launched in 2020. And it’s already proving to be a career-maker and a catalyst for getting exceptional, necessary stories out into the world.

Stories are powerful engines of belonging and cooperation. They can bring people together where argument and persuasion fail. They can help us overcome our differences, enlarging and enriching our sense of who we are as Americans, and what we can accomplish together.

Will you join us as the Story Incubator Writing Lab begins its sixth year?

Maybe you are a phenomenal rising screenwriter and you'd like to join the Lab. Maybe you know a phenomenal rising screenwriter who would be a great fit for the Lab. Maybe you know someone who knows someone who fits that description. Or maybe you are a generous soul who would like to support great writers as they craft the stories that can heal our divided nation.

You get the idea. We want to hear from all of you! So, please consider doing any or all of the following:

• Subscribe to this newsletter. It’s free! Or, if you have the resources and inclination, you could spring for a paid subscription — or even become a founding member. All proceeds go to support our mission.

• Share the Story Rules Project with your network. Encourage your people to subscribe, too.

• Make a tax-deductible gift directly to the Story Incubator Writing Lab.

• Introduce yourself — if you are a storyteller, screenwriter, manager, producer, director, studio exec, philanthropist or financier who resonates with our work, we want to hear from you! Leave a comment here, or write to us.

Okay! That’s it for today, everyone! We’ll be back soon with posts on everything from Bruce Springsteen to AI to the wild things we learned while studying the brain on Dallas Buyers Club.

Until then, I give you Pip and Jenny Wren, silent partners who often sacrifice their squirrel-stalking to attend Story Incubator Zoom sessions, where they enjoy walking on the keyboard, blocking the camera with their tails, and occasionally contributing important insights on story structure and character development.