Introducing the 2026 Episodic Lab Writers
We are delighted to introduce the writers and projects selected for our 2026 Episodic Lab:
Amy Huckabay ~ Danniel Rodriguez ~ Lekethia Dalcoe ~ Sean Buckley
AMY HUCKABAY is a Bay Area raised writer, committed to telling female-focused stories where characters don't have to be likable, they just have to be real. Her unique blend of humor and heart has earned her a place in the 2022 Black List Lab and made her a two-time Academy Nicholl Fellowship semi-finalist. Her dark-comedy romcom about addiction and step-siblings, Steps is being produced by BCDF. She is currently adapting the New York Times best-selling romantic comedy novel First-Time Caller for producer Laura Lewis’s Rebelle Media.
ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD: A lonely morgue worker who is barely living gets pulled out of her isolated life when a dead guy who can’t stop living asks her for help solving his murder.
DANNIEL RODRIGUEZ is a Miami-born, New York City-based filmmaker and writer. A graduate of Florida International University, his work has screened at Third Horizon Film Festival, Indie Memphis, The Davey Foundation, and been syndicated on HBO Latino. During his tenure, he worked on numerous acclaimed productions as a director’s assistant, show runner’s assistant, and recently a writer’s assistant. In 2024, he was accepted into the WGAE Support Staff Training Program. His current projects draw on the vibrant character and rich history of his hometown, Miami.
YUMA: In 1970s Miami, When a CIA-backed anti-Castro political faction escalates, one pivotal member is forced to confront what the cause has cost his family, his community, and his conscience.
LEKETHIA DALCOE is an award-winning playwright, television writer, and actress from Houston, Texas, now based in Los Angeles. Her work explores utopia as a revolutionary act, imagining alternate realities where those on society’s margins become their own heroes, heroines, and monsters. She served as Executive Story Editor on Armor Wars for Marvel Studios and previously staffed on Two Sentence Horror Stories (The CW) and Silo (Apple TV+/AMC Studios). Lekethia was hired to write an unannounced Bad Robot/Stephen King project and appeared on HBO Max’s Project Greenlight: New Generation. A 2019 Sundance Episodic Lab fellow, her play A Small Oak Tree Runs Red won the 2018 Audelco Award for Best Play.
VALLEY OF BONES: In the remote town of Ezekiel, TX, a doctor’s bond with a mysterious boy begins to unravel buried secrets, endangering the town's carefully constructed peaceful existence.
SEAN BUCKLEY is a television writer from the suburbs of Massachusetts. He has written episodes of Amazon Prime's Harlem ("Five Years Ago," "Pride") and Tubi's The Z-Suite ("Second Shift"). He contributed to the writers' rooms of Showtime's SMILF and Disney+'s The Santa Clauses, rising from writers' assistant to staff writer across multiple shows. On both SMILF and Harlem, he was promoted mid-production and traveled to Boston and New York to work on set, gaining experience typically reserved for higher-level writers.
A semifinalist for the Outfest Screenwriting Lab and participant in the Writers Guild of America West's LGBTQ Committee Mentorship Program, Sean is drawn to character-driven ensemble stories that explore how individuals navigate their identities within the messy systems of family and community. His work balances sharp humor with emotional honesty.
He earned his BS in Film and Television from Boston University and lives in Los Angeles with his sapphic wives, their dog, his cat, and a ghost named Pat.
AT WIT’S END: After the death of Eleanor Kenney, her scattered family gathers at “Wit’s End”, their aging Cape Cod vacation home, to settle her estate. What begins as a practical discussion about inheritance spirals into a darkly funny, painfully honest reckoning with guilt, class, and the comfort of old wounds. Six Feet Under meets Picket Fences by way of Parenthood, At Wit’s End is a contemporary ensemble drama about how one house can hold a whole world and what it really takes to keep a big family together.