Panel 5: SUNDAY OCTOBER 19, 12noon -1:50pm ( Re-broadcast of LIVE Event )

Navigating TV and Film as a Writer

Venue: Regal Cinemas 1000 W Olympic Blvd Los Angeles 90015- Mezzanine Floor

Moderator: Cindy Riddle

Explore the current trends of the story, the selling, and the business. Q & A to follow.

Moderator: Cynthia Riddle , WGA Writer

CYNTHIA RIDDLE is a writer/producer with many film/TV credits. Her true-crime feature thriller ROMEO & JULIET KILLERS she co-wrote and Executive Produced is streaming on Tubi (Fox’s streamer). Cynthia has the Academy Award-nominated producer of Dallas Buyers Club on board to produce/direct a film based on her award-winning biopic screenplay, Upstaged. Cynthia’s recent Lifetime true-crime thriller POISONED LOVE: THE STACEY CASTOR STORY she co-wrote and Exec Produced, starring Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), won a Best TV Movie Leo Award. She also co-wrote THE BRITTANY MURPHY STORY for Lifetime, rom com PUPPY LOVE for Hallmark Ch, and CROSSROADS for CBS/Hallmark Hall of Fame. Character-driven crime-thriller pilot BLOOD BROTHERS she co-wrote won/has been a Finalist in top screenwriting competitions including winning Screencraft’s Jamaica Residency, Top 20 out of 9,100 scripts in AMC/Austin Film Festival and Finalist in Sundance’s Episodic Story Lab and Humanitas’ New Voices. Cynthia produced award- winning short films that won Coca Cola Refreshing Filmmakers Award (screened in 14,000 theaters nationwide) and Finalist in PROJECT GREENLIGHT, and No Choice that is currently being submitted to film festivals. Cynthia has an MFA in Screenwriting/Film Production from UCLA. She’s on LA Femme Film Festival Board, Co-Chair of WGA’s Writers Education Committee, and teaches advanced feature screenwriting and short film at UCLA Extension.

Panelists:

Joelle Sellner

As an advertising copywriter, Joelle worked in various media including TV, print, digital and radio. This experience, and her passion for storytelling, has inspired her to become proficient across many genres in entertainment. Joelle has written twelve produced romantic comedies including Hallmark Channel’s Paris, Wine & Romance and AMC’s Saving Christmas Spirit, which was shot in the Scottish Highlands. She’s currently writing a female-driven western set in the American frontier and based on a true story.

In addition to film and TV work, Joelle is an experienced comic book and videogame writer, with books published by Blizzard, DC, Lion Forge, Marvel, and Zenescope Entertainment. Graphic novels include IDW’s reboot of Saved by the Bell, and her most recent original YA graphic novel Werewoofs. She has also appeared as a superhero expert on the Minor Adventures With Topher Grace podcast and is attached to adapt several comic properties into film and TV projects.

In addition to her comics work, Joelle has written for a variety of animated TV shows and web series, including DC Super Hero Girls, LEGO Friends, and Winx Club.

Joelle lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two very spoiled cats.

Michelle Sam

Michelle Sam is a writer, award-winning filmmaker, actress, and multimedia artist. Her work often explores the intersection of identities and stories in a visceral manner. She wrote for Jason Katims' show on Amazon, As We See It, based on the Israeli show On The Spectrum about neurodiversity, as well as Hardly Working on Paramount Plus. She has won various awards for her short films, Missed Connections (KweliTV, CFMDC, audience award at TranScreen Amsterdam Transgender Film Festival, and collaborated with the GLAAD Transgender Media Equality Program) and wrote Black Boy Joy (streaming on HBO Max) which received a NAACP Image Award. 

Most recently, Sam was a speaker on TEDxAccra's Chale Talks virtually and in 2022 she will be doing a live TED talk in Accra, Ghana. She is also penning a limited series about refugees with Made Up Stories and Endeavor Content with New York Times bestselling author and journalist Gayle Lemmon Tzemach executive producing. Additionally, she has partnered up with Westbrook Studios, Major Content, and Mo Abudu's Ebony Life to pen a comedic feature. Other projects in development is a comedic television series with Rebel Maverick and a one hour drama with Roc Nation.

In addition to creating film and TV, she cultivates immersive and interactive experiences and art installations that engages the nine senses, across the Black diaspora and in continental Africa under her name, Yaa Tabriwaa. She is also a co-founder of Out The Box Creative, a Ghanaian production company and artist collective based in Accra,Ghana. 



Hollie Overton

Hollie Overton is a TV writer and producer with over sixteen years of experience. Most recently, she was a Co-Executive Producer on three seasons of All-American: Homecoming. Other TV credits include "Tell Me A Story (CBS All-Access), "Shadowhunters" (Freeform), and “Cold Case." (CBS) Hollie's also sold projects to Warner Bros., Sony, and Legendary TV. 

Hollie’s fourth novel, “A Mother’s Guide to the Apocalypse," was published in August 2025. Her debut thriller, Baby Doll, became an international bestseller in 2015 and was published in eleven countries.  Baby Doll was recently adapted into a six-part mini-series for Paramount UK, starring Alfie Allen, and is set to air in 2026. Hollie has two additional standalone thrillers, "The Walls" and "The Runaway.”

An identical twin, Hollie grew up in Kingsville, Texas, and now lives in LA with her husband, David, and their four-year-old identical triplets. Yes, she is tired, and no, she doesn’t know how she does it.