News Release
Native American Media Alliance
The Native American Media Alliance announced its selections for the 3rd Annual Native American Showrunner Program, sponsored by Bad Robot, Comcast NBCUniversal, National Endowment for the Arts, Pop Culture Collaborative, A+E Networks, and in partnership with Kung Fu Monkey Productions.
“We are excited to usher in another year of incredible writers for this unique intensive,” said Cara Jade Myers, Kiowa/Wichita, director of outreach for the Native American Media Alliance. “We look forward to the new work they develop with their showrunner mentors throughout the program.”
The Native American Showrunner Program is a multi-month intensive that offers mentorship from television showrunners and series creators to experienced Native American writers.
Program fellows take part in several meetings with assigned showrunner mentors who will offer guidance on furthering the fellows’ writing careers and to provide creative feedback on current projects. The program consists of weekly one-on-one mentoring to develop the writers’ abilities, offer advice as it pertains to producing for television, and provide overall insight into running a television series.
The Native American Showrunner Program is a unique endeavor designed to propel experienced Native American writers to the highest levels of television writing and producing. This initiative continues the Native American Media Alliance’s drive for inclusion and focuses on new points of access for the Native American community. The fellowship is an extension of the Native American TV Writers Lab as it equips the next generation of Native American writers with the skills and professional network to break into television producing positions.
The 2022 Native American Showrunner Program fellows:
Maya Rose Dittloff (ǔkkayǔ”kwīyinnimǎakii/Many Pipes Woman) is Mandan, Hidatsa, and Amskapi Pikuni (Blackfeet) from the Starr School region of the Blackfeet Nation. Maya is a member of the WGA and works as a writer, director, and producer across film and television. She was trained at UCLA in the School of Theater, Film and Television, and in 2019 served as a Fellow with the LA Skins Fest Feature Writing Lab. Most recently, she worked as a staff writer for AMC/AMC+. Beyond filmmaking pursuits, she has long been involved both locally and nationally in Indigenous Rights activism. She has served as Ambassador to the American Indian College Fund, American Indian Business Leaders, and in January of 2019, Maya was formally recognized as the Emerging Leader with the Sovereign Bodies Institute, an organization dedicated to MMIW advocacy. Maya is currently a Founding Board Member for Young Entertainment Activists, a member of the Panavision + Made In Her Image inaugural Catalyst Cohort, and a LIFT Fellow with the Native Arts and Culture Foundation.
JohnTom Knight is a writer, comedian, and proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Following his internship at Adult Swim in 2020, JohnTom was selected and participated as a fellow in the 2021 Native American TV Writers Lab. He currently serves as a script coordinator and freelance writer on the upcoming kid’s fantasy animated series Spirit Rangers at Netflix.
Diego Moreno is a Pascua Yaqui and Mexican American screenwriter from Tucson, Arizona. His 2016 Native Horror Short, My-A-Knee, won the Alexander Laing Memorial Award for Best Screenplay. In 2018, Diego received a BA in Film and Media Studies from Dartmouth College where his honors thesis, My Heroes Have Always Killed Cowboys, focused on portrayals of Native Americans in contemporary film and television. After undergraduate, Diego attended the Screenwriting MFA program at the Institute for American Indian Arts. Most recently, Diego was accepted into the 2021 SKINSFEST Native TV Writer’s Lab, the 2021 National Hispanic Media Coalition Series Scriptwriters Program, and the inaugural 2021 Mentorship Matters TV Writing Program. Diego’s first staff writing position came in late 2021 with season two of the Spectrum Originals/Paramount TV Crime Drama JOE PICKETT.
The Native American Showrunner Program was created to expand the number of Native Americans working in writer rooms to increase fair and accurate portrayals of Native Americans on television. Native Americans continue to maintain the lowest representation of writers within current television series.
For more information, visit www.nama.media.
