Tune in for a panel discussion on “Writing for Hollywood” presented by Princeton in Hollywood, featuring recent Princeton University alumni Rachel Alter ’14, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds ’93, Julia Keimach ’12, Kevin Rodriguez ’10, and moderated by Stacy Rukeyser ’91, all of whom have burgeoning careers in the film and television industries.
Presented by Princeton in Hollywood and sponsored by the Lewis Center for the Arts and the Office of Career Services.
ABOUT THE WRITERS
RACHEL ALTER ’14 graduated magna cum laude from Princeton with a concentration in English and a certificate in theater. She currently works as an executive story editor for Netflix’s upcoming teen drama OBX. The show is set to begin filming in April. In addition, Rachel writes for Netflix’s drama The Society, which will premiere in June 2019. Previously, Rachel has worked for STARZ and HBO. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and hopes to make it back to the east coast eventually as a playwright.
SELWYN SEYFU HINDS ’93 is from Brooklyn, New York, and studied English and Afro-American studies while at Princeton. On his current TV slate he’s the creator and showrunner of HBO’s Who Fears Death, a post-apocalyptic drama based on the novel by Nnedi Okorafor with George R.R. Martin executive producing; showrunner and writer of the adaptation of Esi Edugyan’s novel Washington Black for 20th Century Fox, with Sterling Brown and Anthony Hemingway attached; and writer/producer on Jordan Peele’s new iteration of the Twilight Zone for CBS All Access, which premieres in April. Selwyn’s current feature slate includes Legendary Entertainment’s adaptation of Ron Wimberly’s graphic novel, Prince of Cats, starring Lakeith Stanfield; an adaptation of Running A Thousand Miles For Freedom, which he developed for Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Zendaya, that will shoot in 2019; and a top secret project at DC/Warner Brothers that will get him carted off in the night by ninjas if he talks.
Selwyn’s storytelling life before screenwriting includes co-creating the Vertigo comic-book series, Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child; penning two critically hailed non-fiction books, his memoir Gunshots in My Cook-Up: Bits and Bites of a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life, and To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters from the Road, written with Wynton Marsalis; and serving as Editor-in-Chief of The Source Magazine during the late 90s. Selwyn has also written for a wide-array of major American publications, including the New York Times, Village Voice, Vanity Fair, USA Today, Spin, and Vibe Magazine, and his music essays have been collected in numerous anthologies.
JULIA KEIMACH ’12 hails from New York City and studied English and Theater at Princeton. She began her career as a TV literary assistant at WME-IMG. From there she assisted an Executive Producer in a development deal at Warner Bros Television. She has been Showrunner’s Assistant on The Following, The Man in the High Castle, and Mozart in the Jungle. After a brief stint in Development as the Coordinator for Field Trip Productions, she most recently worked as Writers’ Assistant/Script Coordinator on A League of Their Own. She aspires to be a multi-hyphenate Showrunner and Producer for as many epic genre franchises as are willing to throw bajillions of dollars her way. She would also settle for creating an oddball comedy that wins a bunch of Emmys.
KEVIN RODRIGUEZ ’10 grew up in North Texas and studied Comparative Literature at Princeton. Before transitioning into writing, he worked in TV development for Jamie Tarses at Sony TV. He previously wrote on Deadly Class (Syfy) and Notorious (ABC) and is currently a Co-Producer on the upcoming Netflix series American Jesus. Kevin is developing a new series with Sony TV, and he hopes to run his own show and develop series with other writers in the future.
Award-winning writer/producer STACY RUKEYSER most recently served as Showrunner of Lifetime and Hulu’s critically acclaimed, Emmy Award-nominated and Critics’ Choice Award-winning drama, UnREAL. A senior writer on the series since season one, she was promoted to Showrunner for seasons three and four, and received both a Peabody and an AFI Award for her writing on the show.
Rukeyser’s body of work includes Without a Trace (CBS), One Tree Hill (The CW), October Road (ABC) and Standoff (FOX) as well as Greek, The Lying Game and Twisted for ABC Family. She also worked as Glen Mazzara’s (The Walking Dead, Damien) number two on Crash, the first scripted drama on STARZ and as UnREAL co-Creator Marti Noxon’s number two on Gigantic for Teen Nick.
She is currently writing two pilots in the streaming/premium cable space but isn’t allowed to talk about either one! Previously, she has written pilots for Showtime, Lifetime, MTV and Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment.
Rukeyser began her television-writing career in 2002 when she was selected for the Warner Brothers Writers’ Workshop. A cum laude graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two young sons.
