A SMART-ASS TEJANA WRITER

Marcelina Chavira shares growing up in Texas with Mexican and white roots, moving from anthropology into sketch and voiceover, writing for Amazon’s Upload in the thick of our AI anxieties, bringing her Texas upbringing to the King of the Hill continuation, and shaping a voice grounded in magical realism and postcolonial identity in our current climate!

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A PROUDLY FORMULAIC IMMIGRANT WRITER

Jorge Molina shares growing up gay in Cuernavaca, Mexico and dreaming of Hollywood from afar, skipping the traditional assistant path after USC due to visa constraints, building a career curating shorts at top queer and Latino film festivals and demystifying the submission process for filmmakers, and channeling his whodunit obsession into the Gina Torres-led audio drama A Murder in Montecito!

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A PROUD LATE-BLOOMER, DAUGHTER TO IMMIGRANTS, NOW TRAUMATIZED & SEARCHING FOR A HYPNOTIST

Helen Fernandez shares her upbringing between Phoenix, San Antonio, and Mexico, navigating toxic assistant gigs and breaking through via the NBC TV Writers Program, how getting staffed on Happy’s Place and not being asked back taught her the highs and heartbreaks of working in TV, and creating the live comedy show Single Riders Only to explore the absurdity of modern dating!

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A QUEER LATINO-INDIGENOUS DRAG QUEEN TURNED FILMMAKER

Reuben Bernardo Qhapaq shares his journey from Ecuador to San Francisco, surviving chronic illness and a rigid adoptive home, finding community as a teenage runaway in the city’s underground Latino drag scene, going from high school dropout to AFI graduate, and why his upcoming short Esta Noche honors the queer elders who helped him survive.

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A PROUD QUEER, AFRO-NUYORICAN WRITER, ACTOR, & PRODUCER

Ronald Hinton shares growing up with his grandmother in NYC's Upper West Side, reclaiming pride in his roots through writing, launching his Queerty-nominated web series Natives to spotlight queer life in public housing, and building community through the Queer Voices: NYC Film Festival.

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A TEXAN PERUVIAN LATINA WRITER OBSESSED WITH FANTASTICALLY FLAWED WOMEN

Alessandra Jara Del Castillo shares growing up between Peru and Texas, discovering screenwriting at UT Austin after starting in journalism, breaking into writers’ rooms through Twitter and mentorship, channeling her love of messy family dynamics into her scripts, and gaining rare production access as an assistant thanks to generous showrunners.

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A MIXED-RACE WANNABE RAPPER DIY LATINO FILMMAKER

Kahlil Maskati shares growing up half Puerto Rican and half Indian in New Jersey, finding his creative voice through rapping and filmmaking, getting staffed on So Help Me Todd after the Paramount Writers Mentoring Program, and how making his indie feature Do I Shock You Like Lightning? led him to direct a new Chicano detective short set in Bakersfield.

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A BOUNDLESS & LIMITLESS LATINX WRITER

Yohanna Baez shares growing up Dominican in L.A., how a short doc on climate justice in her native DR sparked her storytelling path, her move to NYC to pursue the indie route, and turning All Night Deli—a genre-blending audio series about bodegas, designer drugs, and interdimensional portals—into a podcast, video game, and manga.

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A QUEER ECUADORIAN WRITER FROM QUEENS

Sebastián Rea shares his journey from Ecuador to Queens, his hustle as a teen party promoter, working with Tribeca and Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions, and how the NBC TV Writers Program led him to his first staff job on Peacock’s upcoming limited series Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy.

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A BOSS BABE LATINX WRITER WHO BUILT HER OWN LADDER & HELPS OTHERS CLIMB UP IT

Tawnya Benavides Bhattacharya shares what it was like growing up in a tiny farming town in Eastern Washington, how uncovering family secrets led her to embrace her Mexican roots later in life, why she founded the screenwriting school Script Anatomy, and how a relentless work ethic helped her staff on shows like Bel-Air, A Million Little Things, Ginny & Georgia, and My Life with the Walter Boys!

Instagram - @lalistapodcast

Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks