Film Independent has named six writers for the 10th annual edition of its Episodic Lab, a two-week intensive where writers develop original TV pilots with mentorship from working industry professionals. The lab runs in person from 10–21 August 2026 in Los Angeles. (Deadline)

This year's fellows are Lauren Ferebee, Kristian Mercado, Nikki Palumbo, Sam Schaefer, Val Tan and LaDarrion Williams. Each brings a distinct original pilot to the programme. Dea Vazquez, Film Independent's Associate Director of Fiction Programs, welcomed the cohort for the lab's 10th-anniversary edition. (Deadline)

The projects span a wide range. Williams' Crescent Sun follows a precocious Black teenager whose life changes when he discovers a supernatural amulet that awakens an ancient African demigod bearing his likeness — and a vengeful high priest. Schaefer's Cult Like Activity centres on two lost twenty-somethings who, after their cult dissolves, decide to start their own. (Deadline)

Tan's Dancing in a Forbidden World tells the story of a disciplined Chinese-American ballerina in 1950s San Francisco who secretly joins an Asian burlesque nightclub. Ferebee's Family Dynamics follows a cello prodigy and her ambitious family in a storied New York music dynasty, forced to choose between protecting their legacy and being true to themselves after a scandal. (Deadline)

Mercado's The Hustler tracks a once-legendary hip-hop manager, pushed aside by data-driven executives, who bets everything on rebuilding his career by managing a reckless reggaetón prodigy in modern-day Los Angeles. (Deadline)

Palumbo's Personality Hire — which explores the working relationship between an overzealous tech billionaire and a reluctant writer who discovers that the only way to improve artificial intelligence is to fix the broken real world it is trained on — received the $20,000 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant. The grant is awarded annually to a project that meaningfully incorporates science or technology themes and characters into a dramatic story. (Deadline)

The lab's Creative Advisors and Guest Speakers for 2026 include Glen Mazzara, Colleen McGuinness, Mel Eslyn, Robbie Pickering, JaNeika James, JaSheika James, Ligiah Villalobos, Beth Schacter, Olivia Blaustein, Justin S. Lee, Montserrat Luna, Caroline Mak, Loretta Ramos, Gina Reyes, Ellen Shanman, Akil Rashad Anderson and Henry 'Hank' Jones. The programme culminates in a networking and pitch event where fellows introduce themselves and their work to studio and network executives — a direct line to the people who commission television. (Deadline; Deadline, 2025)

Film Independent's Episodic Lab typically accepts six to eight writers or writing teams and provides mentorship, story development and career support across the intensive. The programme sits alongside the organisation's other artist-development initiatives, including a separate Screenwriting Lab held earlier in the year. (Film Independent)

For these six writers, the next two weeks are a chance to sharpen a pilot script and put it in front of the people who can order it to series — or set it aside. What happens after that depends on the slot, the room and the numbers.