The 2022 Ignition Lab has concluded

Samantha is a proud Nuyorican writer born and raised in Manhattan. Her love for TV began at the ripe age of 5 when she became a child actress [Death to Smoochy, Law & Order: SVU] and developed throughout her elementary years as she wrote, directed and performed in short dramas for her family, classmates and anyone else who would listen. Samantha is a first-generation college graduate. After earning her MFA from the New York Institute of Technology, Samantha worked in Integrated Marketing at Freeform before moving to LA in 2018. She became a Development Coordinator at The CW, providing coverage on hundreds of scripts and assisting in the development of dozens of projects. This exposure to the craft of storytelling compelled her to TV writing and led to her current job as Showrunner’s Assistant to Annabel Oakes on Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Paramount Television). She writes grounded dramedies centered around women who are driven to succeed against all odds. Contact: Represented by Greg Shephard and Lauren Dineley at Writ Large.

Diana Peralta is a director, writer, and producer. Her debut feature film, DE LO MIO (HBO), had its world premiere as the closing night film of BAMcinemaFest in 2019 and was picked up for distribution by HBO in 2020. The film was awarded "Best Narrative Feature" at IndieMemphis Film Festival and "Best Film" at RiverRun International Film Festival. Diana was featured in Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film". Her work as a producer on the short documentary LA FERIA CONCRETA was screened as part of the Dominican Republic’s first pavilion installation at the 2014 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Diana is in development on her second feature film. She currently teaches directing at Columbia University's Film MFA program. Aside from her film work, Diana has worked as a creative producer in advertising for 8+ years. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in Film & Media Studies in 2011. Contact: Represented by Hallie Mariner at APA.

Stephanie Adams-Santos is a Guatemalan-American writer and artist whose work spans poetry, prose, screenwriting, and other swampy, hybrid forms. Her work is rooted in the crossroads of ritual, ancestry, and environment — always with a penchant for the weird, queer, and uncanny. She is the author of Dream of Xibalba (forthcoming 2021, winner of the Orison Books Poetry Prize), Swarm Queen's Crown (finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards), Total Memory, and The Sundering (selected for a New York Chapbook Fellowship by Poetry Society of America). Stephanie’s poems and prose have appeared in a variety of publications, including Orion Magazine, The Boston Review, Guernica, and the anthology “Speculative Fiction for Dreamers” by Ohio State Press. Stephanie has written multiple episodes over three seasons of Two Sentence Horror Stories (CW/Netflix), a series featuring short tales of horror and haunting. Stephanie’s work has been supported by fellowships and grants from Oregon Literary Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Film Independent, Regional Arts and Culture Council and Oregon Arts Commission. In addition to her literary work, Stephanie is a professional Tarot reader and occasional instructor of poetry and divination. Contact: Represented by Hannah Ozer at Kaplan/Perrone.

Melba Silwany is a Cuban-Nicaraguan writer born and raised in Miami, Florida. With a BFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University, she has worked for companies such as NBC Telemundo, Apple TV+, and HBO. During her time at NYU, she received one of the winning positions for the Undergraduate TV Festival for her Pilot "Milking It", and is currently doing stand-up all throughout NYC. Through her experiences in writer's rooms and time on set, she has used what she's learned in the industry to help shape her goals for extending Latinx and POC voices onto the screen. She dedicates her work to finding comfort in sexuality, complexities of religion, LGBTQ+ awareness, her relationships with the women in her life, and how being Latinx has shaped her experience in the United States. She hopes to keep that passion and fire as she furthers her career in writing. Contact: melbasilwany13@gmail.com