Inside the Writing Room with Emily Andras

Saturday, April 30
11:15AM – 12:45PM
Constitution Hall (Room 105)

Writing Room Intensive participants will join showrunner Emily Andras on stage at the conference for a special session on Saturday, April 30, 2016, where the team will finish breaking their spec episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and present their ideas to the audience at the TSC, exploring the process of breaking story in the room. The session will be moderated by Greg David.

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The Boston-born, Calgary-bred Andras has a diverse list of television credits to her name. Currently, she is the Showrunner/ Executive Producer for the supernatural, modern-day western WYNONNA EARP on SyFy. Previously, she spent three seasons as the Showrunner and Executive Producer of LOST GIRL, and recently worked as the Supervising Producer on KILLJOYS.

Andras’ other credits include writer and Co-producer of the police drama KING, and Showrunner and Executive Producer of INSTANT STAR. She has written for numerous other series such as DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION, SOPHIE, TOTAL DRAMA ISLAND, and 11 CAMERAS. She was also hand-picked by Nora Roberts to shepherd her New York Times’ #1 best-selling Blood Magick trilogy to series.

An avid athlete, Andras grew up figure skating and playing rugby. These days, she lives in Toronto with her husband and two small children…but what Emily really wants to be remembered for is being pulled onstage to dance with Bruce Springsteen. Which totally happened.

Matt Doyle is a television writer originally from Hamilton, Ontario, with experience on a variety of shows, from sitcoms to cop dramas, to action thrillers and prank shows. He has writing credits on CBC’s CRACKED, and INSECURITY, TMN’S TRANSPORTER, CTV’S DAN FOR MAYOR, PBS/TVO’S ODD SQUAD and was a writer/producer on both seasons of CITYTV’S MEET THE FAMILY, for which he was twice-nominated for Canadian Comedy Awards. In the past year, he’s been in the development room for both CBC’S KIM’S CONVENIENCE and YTV’s WRONG END OF THE UNIVERSE. He has also written comedy for such publications as McSweeney’s and Vice.

Keri came to screenwriting from the decidedly less fun world of academia. Working towards a doctorate in cultural studies that focused on fandom, she published articles on Lady Gaga, SIX FEET UNDER and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.

Keri recently completed two seasons as story editor and lead researcher on the Global drama REMEDY, where she was responsible for making sure the onscreen doctors both looked and sounded believable. Since wrapping on REMEDY in the spring of 2015, Keri has worked on a wide range of scripted and unscripted projects with eOne, Cineflix, and Inverted Pictures. She is currently developing a documentary series with Indian Grove Productions, and her original pilot, BACK TO THEN.

You can find her talking TV, movies and baseball on Twitter @keriferencz.

Blain Watters grew up in Kingston, ON with his single mother and over thirty foster siblings. Since he graduated from the CFC’s Prime Time Television Writer’s program in 2014, he has worked in the writer’s room on LOST GIRL and Netflix/Rogers’ BETWEEN, where he co-wrote half of season one and wrote the accompanying web series. His short films have premiered at the Milan and New York International Film Festivals. SLEEPING GIANT, a feature he co-wrote with director, Andrew Cividino, premiered in the Cannes Film Festival. SLEEPING GIANT was named best Canadian Film of the Year by the Toronto Star and was nominated for Best Feature at the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards. Blain is now in development on several projects while producing his horror/musical web-series, HAUNTERS, with Smokebomb Entertainment.

Priscilla White abandoned the world of I.T. to create worlds of her own filled with "evil" Faery queens, tortured ex-priests and soccer-mom spies.  Priscilla recently wrapped her first writing room experience as Story Editor for Season 2 of Space/Syfy's KILLJOYS. Priscilla is a graduate of the CFC's Prime Time Television program, a Bell Media National Fellow for the Banff World Media Festival and an alumna of the Bell Media Diverse Screenwriter's Program. Priscilla has juried for T.O. Webfest, was an intern on CBC's X COMPANY and as a SHAW Global Writers' Apprentice, was Writers' Assistant on Season 2 of Global's BOMB GIRLS. Priscilla loves character-based dramas centered on the supernatural/genre, young adults and crime. Twitter: @fortuneshunter

For over 15 years, Greg David has been a television critic for TV Guide Canada, the country’s most trusted source for TV news. He has interviewed television actors, actresses and behind-the-scenes folks … literally hundreds of TV people over the course of his career. He is a past member of the Television Critics Association and currently a partner at TV-Eh.com, a website devoted to spotlighting, supporting and celebrating the Canadian television industry.