Third Annual Black Boy Writes/Black Girl Writes Mentorship Initiative Set

deadline.com:

The 2023 class of mentees for the Black Boy Writes & Black Girl Writes Mentorship Initiative was announced today. The mentees are presented by writer Mike Gauyo (Insecure, Ginny & Georgia), in partnership with Stage 32, and with support from Culture Creative Entertainment, M88, and Final Draft.

The partnership with Stage 32 consisted of a global search for emerging Black writers, which resulted in a record number of applications from over a dozen countries.

The outcome is a mentee class of 12 writers. “We’re thrilled to welcome the latest group of mentees, who I’m sure will go on to do amazing things in and out of the program,” said Black Boy Write Media founder, Mike Gauyo. “I launched this initiative to create a space for Black writers to have access towards a career in writing, not just in hopes of combatting the lack of diversity in Hollywood, but to give these writers a chance at achieving dreams that, otherwise, may have felt out of their reach,” Gauyo, his agency, and management firm Culture Creative Entertainment and M88, respectively, have agreed to read the mentees at the end of the program year.” The yearlong initiative provides pre-WGA Black writers with a pathway to becoming established screenwriters in entertainment.

The Mentorship Initiative, which is comanaged by Ashley Aronson, it’s chief of programming, addresses an ever-pressing need for the entertainment industry to improve the narratives around people of color, supported by many diversity reports that have emerged in the last few years, including the NAACP ‘The Black Executive’ Report which concluded that the “absence of Black control of media” is “harming the African American community.” The 2023 class of mentees will partake in a comprehensive