Get to Know These 10 Emerging Female Screenwriters

Keli Goff kicked off her career first as a writer and journalist, writing pieces for The Washington Post and Time and writing two books, Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence and The GQ Candidate. Following those successes, Goff began screenwriting, contributing to several TV series including Black Lightning, Joe vs. Carole, and And Just Like That...

For the latter, she was highlighted in the reboot's accompanying documentary and spoke about why she included a specific scene about a Black woman being mistaken for someone else. About the scene, Goff said, "Because every dinner party I go to where there are white people, they always think I'm the other fancy Black writer that they know."

April Shih (pictured second from the right) has worked as a staff writer on the shows, You're The Worst and Mrs. America, co-writing "Phyllis & Fred & Brenda & Marc" on the latter and "The Brief Fermata" on the former. She recently wrote the episode "Ad Man" on the series Dave, which focuses on a fictionalized version of the rapper Lil Dicky. The episode that Shih wrote for Mrs. America was absolutely phenomenal, focusing on what it takes to be taken seriously as a woman through the unlikely eyes of Phyllis Schlafly.

Stacy Osei-Kuffour has made a huge splash in the comedy and action genres of both film and television, having written for Watchmen (2019), PEN15, and The Morning Show among many others. Not only was she nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on PEN15, but she also earned herself a Writer's Guild Award for Watchmen. She has quite a few projects coming up, the largest being as the writer of Blade, a Marvel film featuring Mahershala Ali in the main role.

Laura Kittrell (pictured third from the right) is most well-known for her work on the series, Insecure, where she wrote an episode for each season of the show since it first aired on HBO in 2016. She's currently working as the executive producer of the series High School, which is based on the memoir of the same name by Tegan and Sara.

Taking the action-movie world by storm, Christina Hodson has written screenplays for a number of different films, including 2018's Bumblebee and the more recent DC movie, Birds of Prey. Hodson will be staying with the DC universe as she wrote the screenplay for the highly-anticipated Flash, which was just recently pushed back to premiere in 2023.

Syreeta Singleton has done a ton of work on Insecure as an executive story editor and writer, as she wrote on seasons 4 and 5, leading the writing on the episodes "Lowkey Movin' On" and "Faulty, Okay?!" Singleton will also be working on the upcoming HBO Max series, Rap Sh*t, with Issa Rae and other writers like Amy Aniobi.

Megan McDonnell is fairly well-known in the Marvel sphere as she wrote on the series, WandaVision, and will be writing the screenplay for The Marvels, which is set to be released in 2023. She also co-directed the video short, Meet Cute, and has done work in podcasts. The episode of WandaVision that she wrote, "Now in Color," is one of our first glimpses into the superhero side of the show, as it blends '70s style with present-day Marvel action.

Celeste Hughey has solidified herself on the television writing scene. Specifically, she wrote the episode, "Weird...But Warm," on Hulu's original High Fidelity (a show that should've never been canceled), which is a premier example of the show's perfect charm. On top of her work on High Fidelity, Hughey also wrote for the series Dead to Me for Season 2 on the episode, "You Don't Have To."

Samantha Irby has made a smooth transition from author to screenwriter over the past few years, having written the very funny yet emotional stories We Are Never Meeting In Real Life, Meaty, and New Year, Same Trash. Her most recent book, Wow, No Thank You, became a #1 New York Times Bestseller. She has written episodes on the shows, Shrill and Tuca & Bertie, and writing on and co-producing And Just Like That..., which aired in late 2021.