The ISA Podcast

The most recent Table Read My Screenplay contest brought the grand prize winner to the South of France during the Cannes Film Festival. Hear from screenwriter Allegra Oxborough & director Paul Lindsay.

Jen Butler is a comedian and storyteller who specializes in writing feature-length, multi-layered dark comedy screenplays focusing on the complex nature of humans as they navigate spiritual and emotional awakenings.

When not writing screenplays, Jen tells comedic real-talk stories to her 275,000 online followers (@jenbutlersays IG, TikTok, & Threads), performs improv and stand-up comedy, practices martial arts and ballroom dance, and rewatches The Matrix for the 900th time.

Find more about Jen here: https://www.networkisa.org/profile/jenbutler

A. J. BERMUDEZ is an award-winning author and filmmaker based in Los Angeles and New York. Her first book, Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, won the 2022 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a 2023 Lambda Award Finalist. Her most recent feature film project, My Dead Friend Zoe (co-written with director Kyle-Hausmann Stokes, starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman), premiered at SXSW and won the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award in 2024. Her work has been honored at Sundance, the LGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival, the Yale Center for British Art, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the Diverse Voices Award, the PAGE Award, and the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize. In addition to writing and filmmaking, Bermudez is also a former boxer and EMT, and her work gravitates toward contemporary explorations of power, privilege, and place.

Find more about AJ here: https://www.networkisa.org/profile/ajbermudez

Stephanie Bast was abandoned in Korea, adopted by Italians and raised in a town so small and white, someone asked: "How are you gonna understand her when she starts speaking?" Fiercely loved and protected, she was taught to fear "the other" while knowing "the other" was herself. She started to write comedy to heal a wound. Now she writes to heal others, creating characters who think they're not enough, desperate to prove they're worthy of being saved.

Stephanie lives in Los Angeles and is currently ISA's Story Farm fellow, Roadmap's Diversity Fellow, studied at UCLA extension and placed as a Finalist for Austin Film Festival, Final Draft's Big Break, CineStory, PAGE and The Writers Lab winner. A Broadway and TV/Film actress in the time when presenting as Asian was a detriment, she has turned the pain of her race into a super power.

Stephanie writes for everyone who's adopted. She writes for everyone who hates looking in the mirror. She writes for her children, so they may always love their eyes. In a pinch, Stephanie can perform a reverse vasectomy.

See more about Stephanie here: https://www.networkisa.org/profile/stephanie-bast

There's a lot to unpack here as Linda Seger is full of interesting stories and lessons learned along the way. As a pioneering female entrepreneur, she was on the cutting edge of a new type of business - being a screenplay consultant. Her passion, drive, and wiliness to dive into every opportunity took her from small town Wisconsin to lecturing around the world and collaborating with massive Hollywood stars, all while her midwest roots kept her grounded and working hard. Find her book on Amazon, available now.

A native New Yorker, Adam received a BFA from Ithaca College and completed one year of his MFA at UCLA before deciding to quit because those hard wooden classroom chairs were really chafing his ass. Writing began for him when his first play was produced at the West Coast Ensemble Theater in Hollywood. A creative executive who happened to be in the audience one night called Adam the next day and asked him to write a movie for him. Spoiler alert: it never got made. Shocking, I know! Nevertheless, he persisted.

Adam's day job as an Executive Producer of unscripted television shows such as "The Real Housewives of Orange County", "The Real Housewives of Dallas", "Southern Charm" and "The Bradshaw Bunch" pays his bills while he writes. To date, his sojourn in the scripted world includes selling a treatment to Disney Feature Animation, being a staff writer on comedy pilots for AMC and Discovery Kids, acceptance into the Warner Bros Comedy Writers Program, being a finalist for the Disney Fellowship in Screenwriting, developing a romantic comedy with Bryan Cranston for him to direct, and writing several features and pilots that have all received accolades from each contest in which they've been entered.

Adam's most recent success includes being one of ISA's TOP 25 SCREENWRITERS TO WATCH IN 2025. His Horror / Comedy "HELL HOLES was one of five ISA Staff Picks for December 2024 and one of ISA's 25 Top Reads for Winter 2024. "HELL HOLES" is also in the TOP 8% of all scripts on COVERFLY.

Adam's bread and butter is comedy, and his peanut butter and jelly is infusing other genres like horror, action and sci-fi with that comedy. Except for his one drama feature. That one is strictly a BLT on toasted wheat, light mayo.

"Offbeat," pilot episode, 2020 Table Read My Screenplay Grand Prize Winner, written by Marshall "gripp" Gillson.