Will you join us in the creative work of cultural repair?

Stories can heal our political divide

Greetings, Story Rulers!

As the year comes to a close, Maurice and I wanted to extend a huge thank you to our readers — it is an absolute delight to write for you, and to share this space with you.

And while we’re here, I’d like to take a moment to share a little bit about the Story Incubator Writing Lab, the nonprofit of which this newsletter is a part.

When Maurice and I founded the Lab four years ago, we had no idea where it would lead. All we knew was that we felt a powerful sense of vocation, a calling to use what we know and do best — storytelling — to address the hardest, most difficult issues we face today as a nation. Foremost among these, we felt, was polarization, for the simple reason that we will not get anything meaningful done until we can work together despite our differences.

Our differences have historically made us strong. But in recent times, we have forgotten that. We’ve gotten caught up in unhealthy fantasies of ideological sameness that have —shockingly — corrupted our institutions and turned us against each other. And so our differences, which ought to be the lifeblood of a healthy republic, have made us weak. And vulnerable. And angry. And lonely. And very, very sad. This must change — for the good of all Americans, no matter what each of us believes. Maurice and I are only two people. And so of course we thought that huge job should fall to us.

II. A Little Bit About What We’re Up To

In 2020, we launched a small pilot writing program during lockdown—an experiment funded by a generous donor with vision and a willingness to take a chance on us. Today, we run multiple screenwriting labs each year. We lead a high-level fellowship program for rising screenwriters. We’ve built a research program. We’re sharing our insights here on the Story Rules Project substack. We’re planning a book. We’re also launching our own slate of original films, commercially viable projects that tackle our toughest, most intractable issues in a post-partisan, depolarizing way. 

• 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 24 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.

• This year, we completed our first original research study on the neuroscience of story. The Brain on Dallas Buyers Club studies how the brains of liberals and conservatives respond to the film that brought bipartisan right-to-try legislation to over 40 states and led to a federal law. We conducted the study during a live theatrical screening last May and are publishing the results on this very substack (read the first in our series here). We’re watching brains process politically challenging stories in real time, and it’s giving us critical insight into how best to craft commercially successful, socially transformative film and television series.

• Finally, we completed the screenplay for The Luddite Club, our first Story Incubator original film. Inspired by true events, The Luddite Club tells the story of a hopelessly screen-addicted teen who loses her phone — and gets a life offline. The film aims to be a Dead Poets Society for the iPhone age – an antidote to screen addiction that makes it cool for young people to put down the phone and discover what it means to live, be, and love in the real world.

Happy to share our report on our first four years — just ask!

II. No One Else Does What We Do — And We Are Just Getting Started

In four short years, we’ve become a first-rate talent incubator, story engine, and micro-think tank with a unique value proposition: We are the only organization that is laser-focused on using story to bring the American people together across our differences.

Neuroscience tells us that stories are uniquely suited to the work of bringing divided Americans together around our founding principles – and yet no one has set out to do it. Until now.

We’re just getting started — and we’re already adding enormous value – not just for our writing fellows, but for anyone who wishes to change the narratives that divide and limit us. Next year, we expect to see our impact grow.

• We expect 2025 to be the year Story Incubator-supported projects get greenlit for production. We will continue to identify and support exceptional screenwriters who are crafting the stories America needs, working closely with them and their managers to get their projects financed and made.

• Building on The Brain on Dallas Buyers Club, we will conduct new original research into how best to optimize scripts for commercial success and cultural impact. We’ll publish the results, sharing what we learn for the betterment of all.

• We’ll continue to share our insights on storytelling for a stronger, healthier society right here on this substack.

• We will take The Luddite Club to market while scripting Honor Roll, our second feature film. Inspired — or, more accurately, provoked — by the explosion of antisemitism among young Americans, Honor Roll tells the story of an undergraduate who gets caught up in violent anti-Israel protests – only to realize he’s on the wrong side of history and must risk everything to atone for what he has done.

That’s a lot! There is much more, besides, but I’m trying to keep this short. Or at least, less long that it could be. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like to learn more about our work.

III. Will You Join Us?

The Story Incubator Writing Lab is supported entirely by the generous gifts of individuals and foundations. If you are one of them, thank you.

If you are not already a Story Incubator Writing Lab patron, we would be honored for you to become one. Please consider supporting the Story Incubator Writing Lab’s vital and unique work with a tax-deductible gift — a paid subscription to this newsletter, perhaps, or a gift to the Story Incubator Writing Lab itself. (Instructions for how to do that are here.)

Here’s to making 2025 a year of cultural repair — a year of supporting the kind of intentional, inspirational storytelling we desperately need in order to reinvent who we are. Please join us as we work to unlock everything we can become if we simply hold hands and do it together.