Born and raised in Venezuela, Mariannjely Marval draws from her roots and personal journey as an immigrant to craft compelling narratives that challenge societal norms and amplify Latino voices in the entertainment industry. During the pandemic, she participated in a mentorship program led by acclaimed writer and producer Richard Brandes (Jeepers Creepers, Penny Dreadful), which led to the sale and production of her debut thriller feature, Don’t Kill the Babysitter. The film premiered on Lifetime Movie Network in 2024. Mariannjely is also the founder of Once Upon a Script, a women-centered screenwriting community offering retreats, mentorship, industry conversations, and creative opportunities for writers. Through experiences in the United States and abroad, she has created spaces where women can develop their stories, strengthen their craft, and build meaningful creative connections. She remains dedicated to writing feature films that offer fresh perspectives on the immigrant experience while continuing to grow Once Upon a Script as a supportive global community for women storytellers.

Amy Ferris is an author, a writer, a screenwriter, an editor and a playwright. Her memoir, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions From a Midlife Crisis (Seal Press) was adapted into an Off-Broadway play in 2012. Amy has written for both the small screen (TV) and the big screen (Feature Films). As a screenwriter, she co-wrote Mr. Wonderful (Director, Anthony Minghella) and was nominated for a Best Screenplay Award (BET, Black Reel Award) for her adaptation of the film, Funny Valentines (Director, Julie Dash) As an editor, she curated Shades of Blue, Writers on Depression, Suicide and Feeling Blue (Seal Press), and co-edited the anthology, Dancing at the Shame Prom (Seal Press). She co-authored Old School Love (HarperCollins, 2020) with Rev Run of RunDMC fame. Amy serves on a variety of advisory boards supporting women and the Arts. She co-founded The Milford Readers & Writers Festival,and is on faculty at The Kauai Writer's Conference. In 2019 she was named one of Women's eNews 21 LEADERS FOR THE 21st CENTURY, in 2021 she was a recipient of NextTribe's The 12 Women Who Changed the World, and in 2022, Amy was awarded and honored by the National Thoughtful Book Festival as Inspirational Woman in Media. Her new memoir, Mighty Gorgeous - A Little Book About Messy Love, was published Fall 2023 (SheWritesPress). Her new book, Amy In Retrograde (With a foreword by Marta F. Kauffman), will be published in April 2026 by Glitterati Publishers.

Emmylou Diaz is a Los Angeles–based writer, producer, and director with over a decade of experience in one-hour scripted television. She is a co-executive producer and has written for acclaimed series including Jane the Virgin, Station 19, and Charmed, with credits across Fox, Amazon, Hulu, and Universal Cable Productions, among others. Known for emotionally rich, character-driven storytelling, Emmy explores the human experience with humor, heart, and edge. A Harvard A.R.T. MFA graduate in Acting, she brings a performer’s insight to her writing and mentorship. She teaches screenwriters through Sundance Collab and Next Level Scribe, serves as Advisor to the prestigious Humanitas New Voices Fellowship, and co-chairs the Latinx Writers Committee at the WGA. Emmy helps emerging writers find their voice, strengthen narrative craft, and navigate the industry with clarity and confidence, fostering stories that are both authentic and unforgettable.

Anna Henry is an independent producer through her company, Idle Hour Entertainment, which focuses on projects with international appeal and showcasing diversity in writers and stories. Anna is also a sought-after script consultant, and teaches screenwriting for television at UCLA Extension, Stage 32 and Netflix’s Creating Content for the Global Marketplace Initiative. Anna began her 20-year career as a television development executive at CBS, ABC and Nickelodeon. After serving as a creative consultant to several production companies, she became head of development at a boutique literary management and production company. As a manager and consultant, her clients have worked on shows at virtually every broadcast, cable and streaming television network and have set up projects at Amazon, Starz, HBO, Netflix, Sony, EOne, ITV, Corus, among others. Anna is a graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and a member of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society.

Screenwriter. Executive Producer & Founder of StoryLab Pro. Dawn has written and produced hundreds of hours of television across legacy media, cable, and streaming. She has sold pilots and worked on series for NBC Universal, ABC Studios, CBS, DreamWorks, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Lifetime, Paramount, and Disney Entertainment. She's worked with Emmy and Oscar-winning writers, producers, directors, and actors. Her writing credits include Ugly Betty, Samantha Who?, NewsRadio, The Client List, Good Witch, Becker, The Geena Davis Show, and many more. Dawn has been a guest lecturer at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, UTLA Center for Entertainment and Media Studies, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and has been a featured speaker at the Austin Film Festival and film summits around the country. She’s a recipient of the ABC/Disney Writers Fellowship and numerous scriptwriting awards. She founded StoryLab Pro, a script consulting, career counseling, and community-building platform for screenwriters and storytellers.

Los Angeles–based screenwriter, director, producer, and digital storytelling pioneer at the forefront of the global vertical content revolution. After starting in genre filmmaking, she transitioned into Christmas movies, writing five produced scripts in just 18 months—before expanding into microdramas and platform-native storytelling. An early adopter of short-form narrative, Isabel created one of the first curated webseries platforms, developing over 50 original digital series and selling a murder-mystery project to a studio. She is also the author of How to Write a Vertical Series in 10 days, a #1 Amazon bestseller and go-to guide for writers entering the vertical space. Today, she is a leading voice in vertical writing, teaching international masterclasses and mentoring global labs while helping creators craft bingeable, platform-native stories for modern audiences. She is the founder of THE HUB, a global network supporting shopping agreements, co-productions, and cross-border collaborations.

Tracee is an award-winning screenwriter whose screenplays and films have won awards at a number of prominent festivals and screenwriting competitions. She specializes in writing "horror with heart" - character driven genre fare with an underlying message. Her stories focus on bad-ass, yet realistic, women pushing themselves past their limits to survive impossible situations... kind of like they do in real life. Tracee's feature script APEX fka DEEP WATER was a selection on the 2019 BloodList, has Ryûhei Kitamura attached to direct, and sold to VMI to shoot in 2026. She was hired by Epic Pictures to adapt the video game THE MORTUARY ASSISTANT into a feature, which was released in theaters in early 2026.

Since 2021, Hepner has written and produced six romance movies, achieving worldwide distribution and success on video-on-demand platforms such as Amazon Prime, Peacock, Tubi and Roku and network TV such as Hallmark, UpTV, GAC Family and CBC in Canada. Love in the Clouds, airing on Hallmark May 2025, marked Hepner’s sixth project as creator. Hepner is also the author of the Christmas novel, The Christmas Checklist, which is available on Amazon.