WeForShe has selected the scripts and writers for the 2017 WriteHer List. According to an announcement on the WeForShe website, the list — which industry executives help curate — includes “the best available female-driven [television] scripts.”
All types and levels of writers are eligible for the WriteHer List. As WeForShe notes, “The range of stories and voices represented on the list reflect the rich perspectives and experiences that make up our human experiences. Some are funny, some are dark; all are worth your time.”
This year’s list of 17 scripts include stories about adoption, immigration, comedians, Cleopatra, dystopian futures, obesity, the dark side of social media, marijuana bakeries, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
The WriteHer List is just one of WeForShe’s tactics for “improv[ing] the numbers of female storytellers employed in the industry.” According to the website, past selected writers have been hired on staffs, had their pilots optioned, found new representation, and made deals with networks.
WeForShe is a women’s advocacy group created by women. It “strives to find practical ways to bring about a gender-balanced landscape in television.”
The complete 2017 WriteHer List, adapted from WeForShe, is below. Visit the WeForShe website for more information about the organization and the list.
ADOPTIVE BEHAVIOR
By Cindy Fang
A Chinese woman adopted by a white family and raised in the Midwest, has her world turned upside down when her biological mother arrives from China to reconnect. (Half Hour)
BAKED
By Nancy Duff
A recent widow and a society matron, brought together by a secret from their past, realize that in order to survive their golden years, they’ll need to work together and bring a failing marijuana bakery to new heights. (One Hour)
BLACKTHORN
By Bianca Sams
BLACKTHORN follows Davion Littlefield, an investigative journalist and TV host, after the suspicious death of someone she loves. Hell bent on finding the truth at any cost, Davion thrusts herself into a dangerous rabbit hole of military secrets and conspiracies. (One Hour)
BORDERLINE
By Susan Beavers
In El Salvador, Carmen is a respected physician. In Los Angeles, she’s just another underpaid Latina competing for babysitting and cleaning jobs. In Los Angeles, Jamie was a well-to-do mother of two. When Keith left, she was just another divorcee with court-ordered child support and a non-compliant ex. Carmen is pissed off but needs work. Jamie is broke but needs help. If you overlook culture, ego, personality, and resentment from the kids… it’s a perfect fit. (Half Hour)
CLEO
By Julia Fontana
CLEO is about Cleopatra before Cleopatra. It imagines the Egyptian queen’s teenage years, meeting the most powerful woman who ever lived at the time when she was least powerful. This show is about what doesn’t appear in history books: Cleopatra’s origin story. (One Hour)
DJINN
By Tania Lotia
When Ayesha, a young Muslim girl in rural Nevada, is pulled into an FBI investigation of her community, she turns to a demon for help. (One Hour)
ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE
BY Shania Steinberg
Set in the 12th century, amidst endless war and conflict, Eleanor of Aquitaine is destined to become the only woman to sit on the thrones of both France and England. Married against her will, Eleanor is a rebel who will shape her own future and change history forever. (One Hour)
FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS
By Diane Ruggiero
Ex-Olympian Rosalie tends to her injured housebound aunt and finds new purpose in life fighting crime in the neighborhood and driving the local cops crazy in the process. (One Hour)
GHOSTED
By Melinda Hill
In the aftermath of her boyfriend’s mysterious disappearance, comedian Melinda Hill struggles to get her life back on track with the help of a gratitude coach and a pansexual millennial YouTube star. (Half Hour)
I KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE, BITCH
By Tess Rafferty
After a feminist ad exec discovers she is inadvertently having an office affair with her college ex-best friend’s husband, she allows her trainwreck ex-bestie and her two daughters to move in to make it up to them. (Half Hour)
IN REAL LIFE
By Karen DiConcetto
JORDAN, 16, lost her best friend, DAVID, nine months ago in a mass shooting. The series explores how she and her single mom, PAULA, 36, deal with their new reality and struggle to move forward with their day-to-day lives. (One Hour)
LIMERICK
By Lorelei Ignas
A Park Avenue OB-GYN whose alcoholism nearly destroyed her career must struggle to stay sober, employed, and sane in the red suburbs of Pennsylvania after accepting a controversial job at one of the few remaining women’s health clinics in the country that performs abortions after 22 weeks. (One Hour)
MOLLY
By Melissa Rundle
When her mother mysteriously disappears, an honor roll student must forge a new path — one that takes her from prep school princess to drug queen pin. (One Hour YA)
MULTIPLES
By Alyssa Hill
A family drama set in an alternative future where the U.S. has established a one child policy, and twins, not exempt from the rule, are split up via a special adoption process. (One Hour)
PRETTY GIRL
By Lorna Osunsanmi
A 15-year-old obese teenager uses her sarcasm and dry wit to survive the woes of high school, but that won’t help her stay alive. (One Hour)
SILO
By Jacqueline Gould
A viral video, revealing the suicide of a 14-year-old girl, instigates an Interpol investigation. SILO is an international mystery connecting people from all over the world that evokes the examination of the pervasive evils propagated by social media and the internet. (One Hour)
STATE OF EMERGENCY
By Annie Brunner
After a devastating earthquake hits Venezuela, Dr. Ellen Bennett and her team of experts put their lives on hold to help save others, but Ellen’s haunted memories threaten to destroy not only the amazing work they’re doing, but her entire world. (One Hour)
