USVAA

Kira Snyder is an Emmy and WGA Award-winning writer-producer. She is the Executive Producer-Show Runner of HBO’s Demimonde. She was the Co-Executive Producer of Handmaid’s Tale. Other work includes the movie Pacific Rim: Uprising. For television, The 100, Incursion, Eureka, Alphas and Moonlight. Kira has written pilot scripts for Hulu, FX and Amazon. She is a graduate of the WGA Showrunner Training Program and the Warner Bros. Television Writers’ Workshop. The Parish Mail eBooks, her interactive Young Adult supernatural mystery series, are available from Kindle and other outlets. Kira began her career as a computer game designer. She created games for Microsoft, MIT, and Electronic Arts, including the seminal alternate reality game Majestic. Kira is a graduate of Stanford and is proud to be a Navy Brat.

Timothy Wurtz is a screenwriter, USVAA Colleague, and the Publisher of Onward Press, a publishing imprint of USVAA

Our regular USVAA workshop begins at 6 pm with an opportunity for participants to present material for evaluation by our USVAA mentors.

Kira Snyder (left) and Timothy Wurtz (right)

Tony Camerino (left) and Sam Wolfson (right)

Tony Camerino is a writer known for his work on all five seasons of the hit CBS drama Person of Interest. He has written on three other television dramas (A.P.B, Taken, and The Enemy Within), and developed original projects for Netflix, Amazon, and Fox. His feature script Landslide (co-written with Will Staples), based on his military memoir How to Break a Terrorist, made the 2015 Blacklist. He also authored Kill or Capture (St. Martin’s Press).

Camerino is a combat veteran (Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq) and retired with 20 years of service in the Air Force and Air Force Reserves. As a senior military interrogator for a Special Operations Task Force in Iraq, he personally conducted or supervised over 1,300 interrogations. Camerino was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his achievements, including leading the interrogations that located Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the notorious Al Qaeda leader and ISIS founder, who was killed in a subsequent airstrike. An outspoken critic of torture, he frequently appears as an interrogations expert on television and radio and has published Op-Eds in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and a cover story, “Martyrdom, Interrupted,” in The National Interest. Camerino has trained U.S. Army interrogators, US Marshals, and foreign interrogators from 15 countries. He is also a Fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations.

Sam Wolfson is an established screenwriter, playwright, and actor. He’s the co-creator of JEWTOPIA, one of the longest running and fastest recouping productions in Off-Broadway history. Wolfson co-penned the book based on the play, Jewtopia: The Chosen Book for the Chosen People, and co-wrote the screenplay for the 2012 JEWTOPIA movie adaptation starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Wolfson’s second original comedy play, PLAYDATES, ran for over a year in Los Angeles to sold-out crowds. He wrote for all three seasons of the hit MTV drama “Finding Carter.” He served as both writer and co-producer all for three seasons of the groundbreaking Disney Channel comedy “Andi Mack,” which introduced the first gay character in Disney Channel history.

Our regular USVAA workshop begins at 6 pm with an opportunity for participants to present material for evaluation by our USVAA mentors.

In Honor of Veterans Day 2020

USVAA Welcomes our new Advisory Board Members

USVAA’s publishing imprint, Onward Press, is proud to present our latest book, Welcome to Blackwater by Morgan Lerette. Welcome to Blackwater is a tell-all memoir of Blackwater and its people in Iraq.  It covers eighteen months in 2004-2005. To learn more about the book and the author please visit the Onward Press website.

THE NAVY GAVE A GAY MAN A HOME—AND A ‘BAD PAPER’ DISCHARGE THAT HAUNTED HIM FOR DECADES

Congratulations to USVAA Colleague Cathy Torres on her first national published article!

CLICK HERE to read it.

Congratulations to USVAA Colleague Sati Kaur, U.S. Army veteran, writer, film director, and now a participant in the highly competitive 2020 Universal Writers Program. Sati is one of the four selectees chosen from 1500 applicants. You can read more about this exciting news HERE.

USVAA New Works 2018 with Katie Robinson, Kadyn Michaels, Tim Robbins, Izzy Izagui, Sati Kaur, Rick McGovern, Melissa Ritz and Christopher Sweeney.

USVAA Colleague Robert Morgalo’s film The Dispensable is an official entry for October in NewFilmmakers Los Angeles’ Monthly Film Festival.

CLICK HERE to learn more and see schedule details.

NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) hosts its October line-up of screenings and Q&As powered by Seed&Spark, with two programs dedicated to showcasing veteran filmmakers for InFocus: Veteran Cinema, including a shorts program and feature film She’s The Eldest by director Cate Jones, and wraps up with haunting shorts Program Dark Recesses

The day begins with InFocus: Veteran Cinema Shorts, a varied line-up of short films directed by filmmakers who have served in the military, this program covers diverse stories and filmmaking styles and genres that span across thriller, sci-fi, comedy, drama and romance and includes five world premieres.

The afternoon continues with InFocus: Veteran Cinema’s feature film, She’s the Eldest, an offbeat black and white horror comedy about three adult siblings reconnecting to solve a family mystery directed by Air Force veteran Cate Jones.

The evening ends with Dark Recesses, a collection of shorts that capture and examine what is hiding in dark corners of our rooms, our culture and our own minds. The unseen, both real and unreal, horrors and revelations.

All filmmakers are welcome and encouraged to submit their projects which will be considered for all upcoming NFMLA Festivals, regardless of the InFocus programming, which celebrates diversity, inclusion and region. NFMLA showcases films by filmmakers of all backgrounds throughout the year.

COVID-19 Crisis Resources for Artists