Paramount Writers Mentoring Program Announces 2024-2025 Participants

The participants for the 2024-2025 edition of the Paramount Writers Mentoring Program have been announced. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the program and it aims to support and mentor new writers in television. The nine selected writers are Jamil Akim O’Quinn, Wei Ling Chang, Adrian Colón Jr., Jai Franklin Sarki, Seth Harrington, Natalie Higdon, Dijorn Moss, and Trinea Moss, as well as Nick Spates.

Managed by the Paramount Office of Global Inclusion, the eight-month program offers mentorships, career development, and personal access to industry executives. Over the course of 16 weeks, the participants engage in workshops and meetings with showrunners, producers, agents, and executives to gain a better understanding of the television industry.

The writers are paired with executives from Paramount studio brands who provide valuable feedback and guidance on their work. The mentors for this year’s program include Tiffany Smith-Anoa’i, Executive Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion for Paramount’s west coast division.

More than 2,500 aspiring writers applied for the program, with the selected participants coming from diverse creative backgrounds, having worked on projects such as The Equalizer, NCIS: Los Angeles, Home Economics, Tracker, Project Runaway, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, among others.

The Paramount Writers Mentoring Program has proven successful in launching the careers of many writers in television. Past participants include Leonard Chang of Snowfall, Akela Cooper of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and M3gan, Howard Jordan Jr. of The Neighborhood, Angela Kang of The Walking Dead, April Shih of Dave, Aaron Rashaan Thomas of S.W.A.T., Miranda Kwok of The Cleaning Lady, Zahir McGhee of Queens, and Julie Wong of Grey’s Anatomy, among many others.