2021 October Writers
We are delighted to introduce the four talented writers who will be traveling to Almanack Pond Road on Nantucket for our month long October Colony. This exceptional cohort was selected from a dynamic group of writers who are all doing impressive work. It’s with great excitement that we look forward to providing Sonja Perryman, Casimir Nozkowski, Moxie Peng, and Nikki Taylor Roberts with time and space for deep focus among supportive peers.
SONJA PERRYMAN is an award-winning screenwriter and producer with a passion for telling female-driven, diverse stories that center humanity and hope. Sonja graduated with honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in drama, and went on to perform in numerous critically acclaimed theater productions throughout the country. Sonja soon felt a call to participate in health and wellness initiatives in her community and worked as a health educator throughout Watts and Compton. She went on to receive her Masters in Public Health from UCLA and upon graduation, used her research and storytelling skills as Director of Research & Development at Wise Entertainment, where she oversaw numerous television projects and also served as associate producer on Hulu’s Emmy-nominated TV series, East Los High. She is also associate producer on Time 2 Surrender, an award-winning short film directed by Elvis Nolasco and executive produced by Spike Lee. She recently worked as a staff writer on Season Two of the Facebook Watch show, Five Points (EP, Kerry Washington) and served as story consultant on an upcoming Audible drama podcast series starring Vivica A. Fox. Sonja is currently co-writing a one-hour drama in development at Entertainment One and has a half-hour dramedy in development with Gabriele Union’s I’ll Have Another Productions and Wise Entertainment. Her first feature script, The 84, has won numerous awards, including WeScreenplay’s Feature Competition and Nantucket Film Festival’s Tony Cox Screenplay Competition. It is also ranked among the top 1% of all projects on Coverfly. When she’s not writing, Sonja works as a guest lecturer and facilitator. She has spoken at institutions around the country, including: UCLA, USC, UT Austin, Webster University, The Geffen Theater, Johns Hopkins University, and more.
THE 84 1968. South Central Los Angeles. Fourteen-year-old Shay sets off on a journey to find her father, and in the process, faces truths about herself and her family that will prove to be transformational.
CASIMIR NOZKOWSKI is a filmmaker, writer and editor whose work has been written about in the New York Times and featured on The Tonight Show, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, AMC, IFC, and NPR. Casimir attended Vassar College before settling in New York City, the backdrop for many of his films. He co-created the landmark viral video phenomenon, “Crying While Eating” and has written, directed and/or edited over 100 short films – which have premiered at places like Sundance, SXSW, Telluride, Tribeca, Hot Docs, MOMA and San Diego Comic Con. His shorts have been Vimeo Staff Picks or Shorts of the Week and viewed millions of times online. He sits on the Rooftop Films board of directors and wrote and produced the first ever trailer for the Emmy-winning drama “Mad Men,” the final trailer for Emmy-winner “Breaking Bad,” and multiple Promax award-winning ad campaigns for cable television. Casimir recently wrote and directed his first feature film “The Outside Story” starring Brian Tyree Henry, Sonequa Martin-Green, Sunita Mani and Olivia Edward. The Outside Story premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and was released by Samuel Goldwyn Films in the U.S. and Canada on April 30, 2021. It is now available on HULU. Casimir is currently in development on a sci-fi feature set in upstate New York and a documentary on his father, the abstract painter Thomas Nozkowski.
INTERGALACTIC DIFFERENCES The weight of secrets bears down on a loving couple and their daughter, foreshadowing divorce, a custody battle and planet Earth being harvested by a world-conquering alien species.
MOXIE PENG is a writer, poet and filmmaker from Hunan, China. They started filmmaking in Beijing and now live in New York City and LA. Their shorts have been selected to NewFest, Asian American International Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, and more. As a queer and non-binary filmmaker from a small town in China, Moxie’s subjects are often working class, immigrant ethnic minorities and folks in the queer community, and they often address intersectionality among them. Moxie recently graduated from the NYU Tisch Filmmaking MFA program in 2020, and is now developing their feature TENDER IS THE NIGHT. They were one of the six filmmakers selected to the inaugural Disney Filmmaker Launchpad where they wrote and directed the short THE LITTLE PRINCE(SS), which premiered on Disney+ in May 2021.
TENDER IS THE NIGHT In a farmer’s family in China, the queer son, the pregnant teenage daughter, the eloping mother and the father who is about to lose his land, all face their deepest fears on the same day.
NIKKI TAYLOR ROBERTS Featured in Free the Work's Creator Spotlight/Directors to Watch, Essence Studios Black Femme Directors Showcase, FADER, and GQ, Nicole Taylor-Roberts is a writer-director and native Baltimorean. She got her professional start apprenticing with film and commercial directors at Smuggler and Tool of North America in the early 2000s. She participated in the Sony Pictures Television Diverse Directing Program, AFI Directing Workshop for Women, NALIP's Diverse Women in Media Directing Workshop, and the Commercial Diverse Directors Mentorship 50/50 Program. Her award-winning shorts have collectively screened at prestigious film festivals, including Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Sundance, Holly Shorts and Urbanworld. She wrote-directed on S1 of BET’s 'The Waiting Room.' Her original episode, "The Battle of Lexi Smith," starred Keshia Knight-Pulliam and Jean Elie. She’s developing this into an original series. Her feature screenplay "A Girl from Haiti" won the Grand Prize in the We Screenplay Diverse Voices Competition. Taylor-Roberts is a prolific TV promos writer-producer and served as senior writer on several Promax winning campaigns. She sometimes writes for political campaigns; she wrote for several campaigns, including the Biden-Harris 2020 Presidential campaign. She wrote and created the "Reclaim Your Vote" 2020 campaign — a social initiative by BET, The National Urban League. Her short in fests now, 410 STAMPED, stars Eden Duncan Smith (See You Yesterday) is being developed into a series with Elegance Bratton and Chester Algernal Gordon as EPs. Taylor Roberts graduated from Northwestern University Radio/Television/Film Program and Columbia University School of the Arts MFA Film Program.
A GIRL FROM HAITI A young Haitian woman sets out to Miami to rejoin her father, but an earthquake flips her life and country upside down in an instant; now, she must find a way home with the only people she has left – a murder and a thief.