Writers Guild Foundation Names Five Military Veterans to 2026 Fellowship Cohort
Five military veterans will join the Writers Guild Foundation's 2026 Veterans Fellowship, the organisation announced on 27 August 2026, as first reported by Deadline. The cohort — Jon-Alexander Genson, Kat Castañeda, Manda K. Skelton, Shain Brenden, and Shannon Corbeil — will each be paired with an established television writer for an intensive mentorship designed to open doors into the industry.
The five mentors are Dennis Lehane, David Schulner, Aron Eli Coleite, Dayo Adesokan, and Brian Studler. Lehane's screenwriting credits include The Wire and Black Bird; Schulner created The Council of Dads; Coleite has written for The Walking Dead and Locke & Key. Each fellow gets one-on-one professional guidance alongside educational resources and career-building opportunities, as outlined by Deadline.
This is the third year of the fellowship, which the Writers Guild Foundation established in 2024. It builds on the WGF Veterans Writing Project, a yearlong mentorship programme that has helped veterans develop their screenwriting craft for more than a decade. The 2026 cohort is led by instructor Eli Edelson, a development executive and writer, who commented on the new fellows in a statement shared with Deadline.
The fellowship runs on a clear timeline. Applications closed on 28 April 2026, with applicants notified of their admission status by 10 August 2026. The programme formally begins in August 2026, and an eight-week course starts in October 2026, according to the Writers Guild Foundation.
The programme has a track record. Alumni of the Veterans Fellowship have had scripts optioned, secured representation, and landed staff positions on shows including Paradise, Watson, Memory of a Killer, and American Blue. Optioning a script means a producer or studio pays for the exclusive right to develop it; securing representation means signing with an agent or manager. Both are concrete steps toward a working career in television.
The 2025 cohort — Addison Blu, Christopher Harris, LeVonda Lee, Corinthian Maldonado, RJ Palisoc, and Anthony Pittore — was announced in March 2025, per Deadline. The WGF Impact Report 2025-2026 noted that the fellowship's second year supported six writers with mentors and resources. The 2026 intake brings the cohort back to five.
For the writers involved, the stakes sit where they always do in television: a room, a credit, a story that either gets finished or does not. What the fellowship offers is a direct line to the people who build those rooms.
