Deadline: January 10, 2025
Applications are open for the Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting 2025. The Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting is a one-year fellowship that is awarded to an outstanding emerging screenwriter. This program, now in its 17th year, is a partnership between the Writers Guild Initiative and the King Family Foundation, and this is its ninth year being hosted on blcklst.com.
The purpose of the fellowship is to provide an opportunity for an emerging screenwriter to develop an original screenplay and to provide them with training and educational resources about screenwriting. The Writers Guild Initiative (WGI) is looking for diverse and unique voices, and for projects that are character-driven and personal in nature. They are exclusively seeking feature films: no shorts, plays, fiction manuscripts, or TV pilots will be accepted at this time. For the avoidance of doubt, the screenwriter will retain all rights in their original screenplay.
This year, the Black List will choose ten screenplays to send to the Writers Guild Initiative selection committee for consideration. The shortlist will be determined in late January, and the Fellowship recipient will be selected by WGI no later than March 2025. The winner of this year’s Fellowship will be announced in Spring 2025 and will be invited to attend the 2025 WGI Gala.
Benefits
- The fellowship recipient will receive a $10,000 stipend to support their development of an original screenplay (not the script used to opt in to the fellowship) and they will be mentored during the course of the fellowship year by a prominent screenwriter.
Eligibility
- Entrant must host a full-length feature screenplay on blcklst.com for at least one week during the submission period – September 30, 2024 through January 10, 2025.
- Entrant must be the sole and exclusive author of the screenplay submitted for consideration.
- Entrant must be over the age of 18 and no older than the age of 25 by 12/31/24 and competent to contract.
- Entrant must not be represented by an agent or manager in the film or television industry at the time Entrant opts into this program.
- Entrant must be a US citizen or a legal permanent resident.
Application
If requested, the entrant must submit the following, which are also governed by the submission requirements and agreement:
- A personal statement
- A professional resume
- Contact and other personal information
- A logline and 250 word synopsis of the submitted screenplay
- Two page pitch of film you’d like to write during the fellowship year
- Signed originals of the Submission Agreement
- Note that if you already have a script hosted on the Black List website, the deadline to opt into consideration for this fellowship is January 10, 2025. All ratings associated with the script, including those that predate the submissions period, will be considered in the final decision.
For more information, visit Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship.
