TAWNYA BENAVIDES BHATTACHARYA, Founder & CEO
Tawnya Bhattacharya is a professional TV and Feature writer, along with her writing partner, Ali Laventhol. They most recently sold two shows – a legal pilot, The Advocate, to ABC with 20th and The Walk Up Company, and a Y/A Thriller based on the book The One That Got Away with Murder to Hulu with Gaumont Studios. The duo are Co-Executive Producers who have written on over a dozen shows, including Netflix’s My Life With The Walter Boys, Bel Air (Peacock), Ginny & Georgia (Netflix) and A Million Little Things (ABC), as well as several TV Movies.
Bhattacharya launched Script Anatomy in 2011 with the goal of using her own experience and writing process to help others break in, navigate, and build careers in the industry. Her unique curriculum and trademark tools have helped thousands of writers sell scripts, get TV and Feature writing jobs, find representation, and write novels.
The Script Anatomy method has been brought to numerous industry powerhouses, creating Bespoke Writing Program Curriculums for NBC Launch, Warner Bros Discovery Access Writing Program, WBD Access x Youku Script to Series initiative – a 6-month development program launched in Asia-Pacific to foster Chinese-language scripted stories.
She has also created Bespoke workshops, guest taught, or consulted for Onyx Collective, the HBO Max WBD Animated Shorts Program, the Disney | ABC Writing Program, The Humanitas New Voices Fellowship, the Austin Film Festival, the Producer’s Guild (PGA) Power of Diversity Workshop, Carleton College, NIKE, Hugo House in Seattle, the Willamette Writers Conference, Stage 32, The International Screenwriters Association, TV Writers Fund, Backstage Pass, theNational Hispanic Media Coalition and the CineStory TV Writers Retreat in Idyllwild.She has written articles for Script Magazine and been a guest on several podcasts, including the Screenwriters Rant Room, Scripts & Scribes, Sell Your Screenplay, The TV Writers Podcast, On the Page, La Lista, and more.
Bhattacharya did the WGA Showrunner Training Program (2023), NBC Writers on the Verge and the FOX Writer’s Intensive Writing Programs. She and Laventhol are repped by Paradigm, Adventure Media and Morris Yorn.
KEVIN TOWNSLEY (Director of Development)
Kevin Townsley has been staffed on multiple comedies (GOOD TIMES, Netflix) and drama series (LIE TO ME, Fox), and has also written two comic books and a novella. He’s a writer’s writer, a long time instructor at Script Anatomy, and an agent’s staffing nightmare because no one knows what box to put him in.
As an assistant Kevin worked on over a dozen shows and various pilots before he landed on Shawn Ryan’s desk. He assisted Shawn Ryan and Marney Hochman for Shawn’s production company MIDDKID PRODUCTIONS (THE SHIELD, TERRIERS, THE UNIT). This is where received his “Masters in showrunning” from watching Shawn run multiple shows simultaneously all while developing new shows.
Kevin graduated from the The University of Arizona (The Harvard of the Southwest, or at least that’s what he tells him mom) with a double major in Cultural Anthropology/Spanish, and he’s traveled and lived in 27 different countries. Kevin recently spent a year living on AIRBNB all around Los Angeles before he settled into the mountain enclave of Topanga, where he now lives in a yurt. He’s currently working on GOOD TIMES for Netflix and adapting a comic book for Zenescope Entertainment.
Mariyam Mahbub (OPERATIONS MANAGER)
Mariyam developed an overactive imagination as a way to escape a tumultuous childhood in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. Informed by her early experiences, she creates work with a global perspective and her flair for fantasy lends itself to extensive world building and unique characters.
She has been shortlisted for Sundance’s New Voices lab, a semi-finalist for Screencraft’s Sci-fi & Fantasy competition, quarter-finalist for Final Draft’s Big Break and an official selection of Film Independent’s Project Involve. She was awarded the LMU Fellowship grant and her short film, Wednesday, was acquired by HBO where it is currently streaming. As an alumna of the Film Independent/LMU Incubator Lab Mariyam also wrote, directed, and produced an eight-episode web series, Contemporary Mating Rituals, currently in consideration for streaming on HBOMax. Her pilot Huseins’ Hut was an official selection of the MPAC Hollywood Bureau & Familiar Stranger Lab in 2020.
Previously, Mariyam worked in international sales for feature films at Global Road Entertainment as well as TV development for YA and social impact stories at Anonymous Content. Most recently, she served as writers’ assistant on the upcoming superhero series, Dalit. Mariyam is passionate about the #PayUpHollywood movement and a proud member of YEA! (Young Entertainment Activists) and Muslim Women Who Brunch. Mariyam received her MFA from Loyola Marymount University and studied abroad at the University of Cambridge.