Featuring over forty interviews with America’s leading showrunners, this book provides unique perspectives and insights into the TV industry, and demystifies the craft, backbone, skill, strategies, challenges, and persistence it takes to succeed in Hollywood and internationally.
Marygrace O’Shea’s conversations with women showrunners are part master craft lesson, part backstage pass, part career guide from the geniuses who create the best TV. The book shines a light on what it truly means to be a showrunner working in the industry today, and reveals how to navigate a career and a future in the global marketplace. Interviews include Angela Kang (The Walking Dead), Aline Brosh McKenna (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Barbara Hall (Madam Secretary), Charlotte Brown (Rhoda), Chris Nee (Doc McStuffins), Elizabeth Berger (This is Us), Gloria Calderón Kellett (One Day at a Time), Ilene Chaiken (The L Word), Liz Meriwether (The New Girl, The Dropout), Liz Tigelaar (Tiny Beautiful Things, Little Fires Everywhere), Marta Kauffman (Friends, Grace and Frankie), Tracy Oliver (Harlem, Awkward Black Girl), Sierra Teller Ornelas (Rutherford Falls), and many more.
Ideal for professional and aspiring television writers, as well as students of screenwriting, film and TV, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the art, craft and business of creating television.
Introduction, Aline Brosh McKenna
I’m Here to Tell You You’re Qualified
Angela Kang
Permission to Go After What I Love
Barbara Hall
We’re All on the Side of the Show
Charlotte Brown
The First Woman in The Room Who Wasn’t There to Take Lunch Orders
Chris Nee
The World as I Hope it Will Be
Dailyn Rodriguez
Advocate for Yourself
Dayna Lynne North
Be Your Own Hype Girl
Dee Johnson
I Climbed Every Rung of the Ladder
Elizabeth Berger
We Loved the Way Television Made Us Feel
Erica Kodish
You Girlfriend, Are Going into Battle
Felicia Henderson
Sometimes, You’ve Got to Put on Your Sasha Fierce
Gillian Horvath
I’m a lot of Things, a Woman is Only One of Them
Gloria Calderón Kellett
They Don’t Know I’m Superman
Ilana Pena
Let’s, Like, Do Big Things
Ilene Chaiken
You Have to Believe that You Know Best
Janine Sherman Barrois
I’m Going for the American Dream Daily
Jenny Bicks
In a Good Room, It’s Magic
Jo Miller
People Want to Hear an Angry, Menopausal Woman Screaming, So Here I am
Julie Plec
I Moved Here with No Experience and No Skills
Krista Vernoff
The Key to Longevity is Knowing Yourself Well
Linda Yvette Chávez
Me, Fully and Without Fear
Lisa Hanawalt
A Little Room to Play
Liz Meriwether
People Feeling Safe is, as a Showrunner, Your Job
Liz Tigelaar
I Had to Stop Being So Wide-Eyed and Grateful
Marta Kauffman
To Prove it to Myself
Marti Noxon
Let Go of Being Liked By Everybody
Meg DeLoatch
I’m Authentically Telling My Story
Melinda Hsu
Foster an Atmosphere of Possibility
Michelle Nader
Open Your Mind to All the Possibilities
Monica Macer
You Gotta Be the First One Out on the Dance Floor
Natalie Chaidez
My Lane is Trangressive Women
Nkechi Okoro Carroll
Everyone Deserves the Right to Dream
Raelle Tucker
Is This a Net Positive for the World?
Sarah Gertrude Shapiro
Fear is The Enemy of Creativity
Shoshannah Stern
Trusting Your Gut is the Only Way to Go
Sierra Teller Ornelas
I Come from Storytellers
Soo Hugh
Ideas are Your Insurance
Susannah Grant
I am so Firmly Heart First
Tanya Saracho
We’ve Been Excluded from the Narrative for So Long
Tracy Oliver
Know What You’re Worth
Veena Sud
Blasting Away the Sacred Cow of Motherhood
Winnie Holzman
See the Beauty of it
Acknowledgements
Biography
Marygrace O’Shea is an Associate Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Undergraduate Film and Television Department. She has also taught at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program, has been a Visiting Professor of the Arts at Sarah Lawrence, an instructor at the Media Arts and Technology Department at BMCC, and has also led master classes for students from La Femis. She has worked on shows for ABC, PBS, NBC, HBO, and FOX including Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: SVU, HBO’s In Treatment. She is an active member of the WGA East.
