Five screenwriters chosen as 2023 Academy Nicholl Fellows in Screenwriting

Five screenwriters have been chosen as the 2023 Academy Nicholl Fellows in Screenwriting. Each fellow will receive a $35,000 prize and mentorship from an Academy member during their fellowship year. The 2023 winners will take center stage at the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Awards and Live Read on April 25th at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The event will showcase their talents as actors bring scenes from their winning scripts to life.

2023 Academy Nicholl Fellows in Screenwriting Winners

The Nicholl Fellowships were established in 1985 with the support of Gee Nicholl in memory of her husband Don Nicholl.

Winners are:

• Brent Delaney (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) for “Brownie Mary,” about a woman who distributes cannabis-infused brownies to help AIDS patients in San Francisco and becomes an advocate for medical marijuana.
• Harris McCabe (Los Angeles, CA) for “Nat Cady’s Boys,” is about two boys who seek revenge for their father’s death.
• J. Miller (Burbank, CA) for “Slugger,” about a high school baseball prodigy who overcomes challenges to become the first woman to play in Major League Baseball.
• C. Craig Patterson (Los Angeles, CA) for “Tah,” is about a man who returns home to live with his difficult mother.
• Kayla Sun (Los Angeles, CA) for “Boy, Girl, Fig,” is about a man with a rare condition that makes him invisible to people who love him.

Nicholl Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that recipients will complete feature-length screenplays during their fellowship year. The Academy does not acquire any rights to the fellows’ works and does not involve itself commercially with their completed scripts.

The committee is chaired by Eric Heisserer (Writers Branch). The other committee members are from various Academy branches, including actors, casting directors, executives, producers, production designers, and writers.

Promising new generation of writers

Over 5,500 scripts poured in from 83 countries for the Nicholl Fellowships competition. Industry professionals, including graduates of the Academy’s Diverse Reader Training Workshop, sifted through the entries in the first and quarterfinal rounds. Academy members took over the judging duties, selecting just 13 finalists from the remaining entries. The Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee itself closely examined the finalists’ scripts to choose the ultimate winners.

The 2023 finalists are:

Agata Alexander, “Emocja”
Michael Bucklin, “Signature Photo”
Des Burnison, “Barbara the Barbarian”
Leonard Johnson, “The Funny He-She Ladies!”
Stephen J. Johnson, “The Migrant”
Victoria Male, “Showstopper”
Michael Noonan, “Gobbledygook”
Mike Powell, “The Pink Triangle”

The Nicholl Fellowships, a global competition, scours the world to find and champion talented new screenwriters. Since 1986, the program has awarded 181 fellowships, fostering the careers of countless writers. In 2023, several past Nicholl fellows achieved success in film and television:

• Annmarie Morais co-created, co-showran, and wrote for the CBC and BET+ series “The Porter,” which won a record 12 awards at the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards.
• James Mottern wrote and directed the documentary “Mark, What’s the Plan?”
• Ken Kristensen is co-executive producer and writer on “The Continental” and writer and supervising producer on “Echo.”
• Susannah Grant wrote and directed “Lonely Planet” for Netflix.

Scripts to be performed at live read in April

Celebrate the 2023 Academy Nicholl Fellows in Screenwriting at the Awards and Live Read on April 25! The event takes place at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater and is free and open to the public (tickets required). Get yours online starting today! The theater is at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90211.

For more information about the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, visit https://www.oscars.org/nicholl.