A panoply of
very-accomplished writers shared their career experiences and views last night
(September 15, 2017) in the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills at that
group’s “Sublime Primetime 2017” panel discussion. Moderated affably by Larry Wilmore, the panel
consisted of:
Steven Davis
and Kelvin Yu, co-writers of the “Bob, Actually” episode of Bob’s Burgers.
Lena Waithe,
co-writer with Aziz Ansari of the “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None.
Gordon
Smith, writer of the “Chicanery” episode of Better
Call Saul.
Jo Miller,
head writer and showrunner at Full
Frontal with Samantha Bee, whose writing staff won the 2017 Emmy for the
variety special “Not the White House Correspondents Dinner.”
Matt and
Russ Duffer, co-writers of the pilot episode, “Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers.” of Stranger Things, of which they are both
also co-creators.
Ms. Miller and
her team have already won an Emmy. The
others are nominated for Emmys for their works cited above. The awards will be presented on Sunday,
September 17th.
Ms. Miller
answered some questions from Etopia News
in a brief video segment. She declared emphatically
during the interview that the political satire she produces has no effect on
anything. Nevertheless, she says that when the work coheres, that’s a great joy
in itself.
After regaling
the attentive and enthusiastic audience of dignitaries, press, and others with
their origin stories as writers, their tribulations with clueless studio
executives, and the dynamics of collaboration, a consensus was reached favoring
advice from Lena Waithe to “be great.” Also
agreed upon was the need to “be yourself.”
The moderator
and all the guests were themselves, and they were great.
