SeriesFest

A Celebration of Episodic Storytelling

Next50 Foundation + SeriesFest TV Writing Lab

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SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

Meet our writers & mentors

SeriesFest is thrilled to partner with with Next50 Foundation on this year’s TV Writing Lab! We’re inviting emerging episodic writers to join us for an exclusive Writers Retreat in the fall of 2026 in Colorado.

The TV Writing Lab in partnership with the Next50 Foundation seeks unproduced 20-45 minute pilots that challenge the perception of aging and scripts must be void of stereotypes traditionally associated with aging.

Instead of familiar tropes, we’re excited to see nuanced, authentic, and surprising representations of older adults. Intergenerational stories are not only welcome—they’re encouraged!

“Aging is one of the most universal human experiences, yet older adults remain one of the most misrepresented groups on screen. Stories shape not only how we see each other but ourselves. By partnering with SeriesFest, we’re investing in writers who have the vision to share stories that truly value growing older.”

Peter Kaldes President and CEO, Next50 Foundation

The Writing Lab

We’re thrilled to welcome our guests to Denver, CO, from October 28–30, 2026, with support from the All Inn Hotel and Call to Adventure Media.

Oct 29 – Don’t miss our panel at Denver Film Festival with Teri Weinberg, Elsie Choi, and Alex Maggioni, moderated by Denver Post journalist John Wenzel.

Writers

Semien Abay
Writer, The Gym

The Gym
When a traditional housewife starts her fitness journey at her career-focused daughter’s new gym, they come to see there may be more to the other’s way of life than they realized.

Bio

Bio

Semien Abay is a first generation Tigrayan-American TV writer based in Los Angeles. Originally from San Jose (Bay Areaaa!), she got her start in entertainment working as a CBS Page then went on to work for companies like CAA, Warner Bros., and as a Showrunner’s Assistant on “Average Joe” (Paramount+).

Prior to entertainment, she had a multitude of adventures working as a radio host and part-time English teacher in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; keeping up with the insanity of tech startup culture in Silicon Valley; and backpacking around the world (23 countries across 5 continents) for a full year.

Elijah Guo
Writer, Cecil’s World

Cecil’s World
Cecil Sheng’s world is forever changed when his wife Mina suddenly passes away… but after her loss, he is surprised to feel a newfound lightness, freedom and lust for adventure at 95 years young.

Bio

Bio

Elijah Guo is a writer/actor whose original TV pilot MY FRIEND WILL premiered at Tribeca and streamed on The Roku Channel. His original series STAND-INS premiered at the Emmys-partnered Catalyst TV Festival, and his short film READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP premiered at Dances With Films and was a finalist at the Austin Film Festival. His original feature PERSIMMON SPRING is on the Black List Quarterly Top List.

Elijah’s play TOURIST TRAP is an O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist, premiered at Ars Nova ANT Fest, and was a Top 12 Finalist at the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival. He is an alum of the Harvardwood TV Writers Program and a winner of the Sundance Collab Screenwriting Challenge. MFA: American Repertory Theater Institute at Harvard University.

Jenny Rachel Weiner
Writer, Mule

Mule
A half-hour dark comedy about a Jewish bubbe in Florida who gets catfished into becoming a drug mule, but over the course of the series transforms herself into a bonafide queenpin running an international drug cartel.

Bio

Bio

Jenny Rachel Weiner is a playwright, director, and screenwriter based in Brooklyn and a graduate of The Juilliard School. Her plays include Horse Girls, performed around the world; Kingdom Come, produced Off-Broadway by Roundabout Theatre Company; and The Chameleon, commissioned by Roundabout and produced at Theater J. Jenny has sold feature films to Universal, Netflix, and Makeready, and original television projects to Onyx, Amazon, Hulu, and FX. Fugly, an Audible Original she wrote and directed, executive produced by Elizabeth Banks, was released in 2026. She is currently developing projects with Michael Showalter, Maya Rudolph, and Jenni Konner, and will write and direct the short film SPECIAL, starring Catherine Cohen, in 2027.

Mentors

Teri Weinberg
President, Yellow Brick Road

Bio

Bio

TERI WEINBERG
President, Yellow Brick Road

Former NBC Entertainment Executive Vice President Teri Weinberg, who oversaw all aspects of NBC Entertainment’s scripted development and current primetime programming, launched her own production company, Yellow Brick Road, in 2009, with a two-year first look deal with NBC Universal. Weinberg then partnered with Golden Globe, Emmy Award winning actor and producer, America Ferrera in 2016, with a four-year first look deal with NBC Universal, and has since returned to independent producing.

Weinberg was Co-Executive producer of the Peabody, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning “The Office,” which has also received two Television Critics Association Awards, multiple WGA awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She also served as Executive Producer of “Ugly Betty,” winner of two Golden Globe Awards, an Emmy Nomination, a Peabody Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In addition, Weinberg was Executive producer of the Golden Globe nominated, “The Tudors.”Weinberg was nominated for two Emmys in July 2007, as both “The Office” and “Ugly Betty” were nominated as Outstanding Comedy Series. Weinberg Executive Produced National Geographic’s Emmy Nominated Event Movies, “Killing Kennedy” and “Killing Jesus,” multiple Film Festival winner “Charged: The Eduardo Garcia Story,” and has most recently Executive Produces Netflix’s new dramedy series, “Gentefied,” which is embarking on its Season Two.

Earlier, Weinberg served as Executive Vice President of Scripted Programming at Reveille from its inception in 2002, overseeing and serving in a variety of producing, development, casting and Executive roles. Also during her tenure, Reveille was responsible for producing “The Biggest Loser,” “The Restaurant”, “Nashville Star” and “30 Days,” amongst other unscripted fare.

Prior to Reveille, Weinberg was a television talent agent at ICM. She began her agency career working in the feature talent and literary department.

Weinberg resides in Los Angeles. Interests and passions include health and wellness, yoga, surfing, hiking, philanthropy.

Elsie Choi
Head of Scripted TV, CJ ENM America / Studio Dragon Global

Bio

Bio

Elsie Choi-Pletts most recently served as the Head of Scripted TV at CJ ENM America / Studio Dragon Global. Prior to CJ ENM America, she was a Non-Writing Executive Producer on Hulu’s INTERIOR CHINATOWN created by Charles Yu and directed by Taika Waititi. She was also the Head of Cable/Streaming TV for Rideback and served as Executive Director of the MRC x Rideback TV Incubator.

Choi-Pletts started in TV as the SVP of Development for Mad Rabbit, a joint venture with Red Arrow Studios and writer/director/producer Kari Skogland (Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning director of THE HANDMAID’S TALE). She began her career at Morgan Stanley executing financings for cultural institutions such as The Getty Center and American Museum of Natural History, and then transitioned to marketing and publicity at DreamWorks Pictures in New York and Los Angeles. Choi-Pletts went on to head development for Bruce Willis’ company, Willis Brothers Films, where she produced award-winning documentary and narrative features that have premiered at Sundance, Tribeca and Toronto Film Festivals.

Alex Maggioni
Head of Television, LAIKA Live Action

Bio

Bio

Alex Maggioni is Head of Television at LAIKA Live Action, where she is building the studio’s television division and an ambitious slate of bold, highly authored series rooted in distinctive worlds and deeply human characters. Current projects include developing Exit Party with Emily St. John Mandel, who is adapting her acclaimed novel for television following a highly competitive rights process; working with Charise Castro Smith on an adaptation of Kay Chronister’s World Fantasy Award finalist The Bog Wife; and developing a Hugo Award-winning book series with Netflix.

Prior to LAIKA, Alex spent nearly a decade at Amblin Television, where she developed and shepherded series including Masters of the Air (Apple TV+), Resident Alien (Syfy/Peacock), Brave New World (Peacock), and Halo (Paramount+). Her experience spans development, packaging, and selling projects across the television landscape, including packaging The Challenger for Amazon and selling S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed to Netflix.

Across both LAIKA and Amblin, Alex has worked closely with writers to develop ambitious ideas into compelling, producible television, with a particular focus on distinctive voices, character-driven genre storytelling, and projects that pair creative ambition with broad audience appeal.

Betsy Marino Leighton
Producer / Writer, Call to Adventure Media

Bio

Bio

Betsy has worked in the film and television industry for the last twenty-five years. Beginning her career as a Page at NBC, she then went on to work for Scorsese Productions and Clinica Estetica before producing and directing the award-winning documentary, A Six Voice Home. Betsy has produced long form reality and other series for Starz, Ovation, Animal Planet, and High Noon Entertainment. In 2014, Betsy cofounded Unreal Media which sold their first independent horror feature, Apartment
212. Betsy heads Unreal's Development slate, and is in pre production on a half-hour series, Drop Shot Divas. More recently Betsy has started the writer’s development company, Call to adventure Media, where she organizes and runs writers labs, rooms workshops. She has taught screenwriting and tv writing at Stephens College and Colorado Film School. Betsy has also written a YA novel for Dutton and has finished

Special Guest Speaker

Lydia Storie
Head of Culture Change,
Caring Across Generations

Bio

Bio

Lydia Storie is the Head of Content for Give Not Take Media, a mission-driven production company whose first feature film, Take Me Home, premiered at Sundance 2026 in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Lydia serves as an Executive Producer on the film, which examines care, aging, and disability from an underrepresented perspective. Previously, she has held development executive roles at Muse USA, Endemol Studios’ Additional Dialogue and Original Media.
Lydia is also the Director of Culture Change for Caring Across Generations, a national organization that is transforming the systems and culture supporting family caregiving in the U.S. Under Lydia’s leadership, Caring Across Generations has managed consultations on numerous film and TV projects including: HBO Max’s The Pitt, PBS’s documentary Caregiving, executive produced by Bradley Cooper, and the award-winning feature film Familiar Touch, starring Kathleen Chalfant, among other projects at Netflix, A24, HBO Max, Apple, NBC, and CBS. She has also overseen award-winning social impact partnerships with Fox Searchlight, Amazon-MGM Studios, NBC, 20th Century TV and FOX networks, including for American Fiction, Nightbitch, and This Is Us.
Lydia is the co-author of “Make Care Pop,” the first comprehensive study of long-term care representation on TV by Caring Across Generations and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. She also created the Care Inclusion Playbook, a storytelling resource designed to help writers and filmmakers avoid common narrative pitfalls in care-related storytelling and to spark new creative ideas that expand the visibility and range of care depictions across our entertainment landscape.
Lydia lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children, ages 6 and 4. The journey of becoming a parent caregiver to her oldest child, who was diagnosed with developmental delays at 6 months old during the Covid pandemic shutdown, inspired her to bridge her expertise in entertainment storytelling with the work of Caring Across to increase visibility for all types of care experiences in our popular culture.

Three Series Projects will be selected to take part in a 3-day intensive in the fall of 2026 led by Call to Adventure Media where their pilot scripts will be workshopped by industry mentors and experts. Activities include one-on-one meetings, small group workshops, mini writers’ rooms, and networking opportunities. 

What is included: Accommodations and Ground Transportation in Colorado 
What is not included: Airfare and Meals

DateMilestoneFee
Apr 22Open Submissions$40
Jun 3Regular Deadline$40
Jul 14Late Deadline$55
Oct 3Latest Notification Date
Oct 28-30TV Writing Lab

Pilot script (all genres are welcome) Between 18 – 40 pages

  • Seeking  stories that thoughtfully challenge and expand perceptions of aging—think along the lines of Grace and Frankie, Hacks, or Shrinking. Show us dynamic, complex characters and fresh perspectives that reflect the richness of life at every stage.
  • Scripts must not include stereotypical portrayals of aging
    • The ‘frail’ and helpless older adult or sickly elder in need of constant care
    • Grumpy curmudgeon
    • Sweet grandparent with no character or lines

Series Format Deck

  • The Series Format Deck is a 2-15 page document that includes a logline, series regular and recurring character descriptions, and Season One story arch or future episode descriptions.

Writer’s Bio & Resume

To be eligible for the contest, entrants must be aged 21 years or older. Limit one entry per person. Each entry must include only one (1) script. Entries must be written in English. Scripts must not be encumbered by any obligation to, or option held by a third party.

THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNER

Next50

Next50 is a Colorado-based national foundation that works toward a society that values aging and makes growing older an empowering, fulfilling experience. In a culture that too often equates aging with decline, Next50 believes that shifting how we perceive and talk about growing older is foundational to building systems that truly serve older adults. We fund programming in three key areas: ending age-related bias and discrimination; advancing digital equity so technology is available to all; and making it possible for people to age where they want to live. To learn more, visit www.Next50foundation.org.

Special thank you

Call to Adventure Media

Call to Adventure Media is a writer’s development company that provides services for storytellers, including writer’s retreats, writers’ rooms, and script consulting. They focus on building community and offering mentorship to help creators develop their narratives.

Accommodations provided by

All Inn Hotel

All Inn is a locally owned hotel with deep roots in its neighborhood. Set within a thoughtfully restored historic building, the hotel gives new life to a place that has long been part of Denver’s story while celebrating the creative community that surrounds it today.
When you stay at All Inn, you’re not just staying in Denver, you’re part of it.
www.theallinnhotel.com