Media Industry Conversations – Launching Your Career Panel (Screenwriters & Agents)

The Department of Radio-Television-Film (RTF) and the Center for Entertainment & Media Industries (CEMI) present a Media Industries Conversations (MIC) panel featuring screenwriters and agents. Guests for this Q&A session include Davia Carter (executive story editor, Debris), Jim Ehrich (literary agent, Rothman Brecher Ehrich Livingston), Kim Tran (staff writer, Space Force), and Cindy McCreery (RTF associate professor, Honey Girls).

To RSVP, please fill out this form & we will send out the Zoom link day-of.

Speaker Biographies

Davia Carter (RTF MFA Screenwriting ’18, executive story editor, Debris)

Molded by her small, Missouri hometown and all the excitement that it offered — none — Davia’s passion for writing spawned from a desire to entertain — herself, first and foremost. This led her to the entertainment capital of the central southwest: Austin, Texas, where she studied at The University of Texas. Since then, Davia’s credits have included USA’s Queen of the South, CW’s Katy Keene, and NBC’s Debris.

Jim Ehrich (literary agent, Rothman Brecher Ehrich Livingston)

Jim Ehrich started his career at boutique management company Hofflund/Polone, where he rose from receptionist to manager. While at Hofflund/Polone, he worked with both feature and television writers and directors. After Hofflund/Polone, he joined Writers & Artists Agency as a literary agent, where he specialized in crossing over playwrights into the feature business. Jim joined The Rothman Agency in 2003 as a literary agent and later became a partner in the agency. He works in film, television and IP representing both writers and directors.

Kim Tran (RTF BS ’16, MFA-Screenwriting ’17 from Michener Center, staff writer, Space Force)

Kim Tran is a first-gen Vietnamese American writer, director and comedian. She most recently was a staff writer for season two of Space Force and is in the 2020 – 2021 NBC Writers on the Verge class. She received the Michener Fellowship to pursue her MFA in Screenwriting and Playwriting at UT Austin. As an improv and sketch comedian, she has performed at various festivals including SF Sketchfest and Del Close Marathon. Her films have been official selections of SXSW, Palm Springs ShortFest and Short of the Week.

Her dramedy short film Zoe and Hanh, about an immigrant mother-daughter sex clash, recently earned a Vimeo Staff Pick and is being developed into a feature with a grant from the Austin Film Society. Her short film Pussy Talk, about a rambunctious talking vagina, was selected to be pitched at SXSW’s Episodic Pitch-a-Thon. Her work explores messy, yet spirited Asian American women fumbling to make their place in the world.

Cindy McCreery (RTF associate professor & screenwriting area head, Honey Girls)

Cindy McCreery was a Walt Disney/ABC Feature Writing Fellow and has since sold feature and television projects to New Line Cinema, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, National Geographic Films, Warner Brothers, MGM, Branded Entertainment, Lionsgate, SyFy Channel, Disney Channel, NBC, TNT, Televisa USA, Universal Television and AMC’s Shudder. Most recently she has produced the fictional podcast, Quaranteen’d, and just finished writing a feature film for Sony Pictures called The Honey Girls. Cindy lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Paul McCreery and their two children Charlie and Finn. She’s a member of The Writer’s Guild of America and is an Associate Professor and the Screenwriting Area Head at The University of Texas at Austin in The Department of Radio-Television-Film.