Because WGA writers had to fire their agents due to the packaging battle, Latina TV and feature writers, a group traditionally underrepresented in Hollywood, were in danger of losing ground. Enter LaListaTV.com, a volunteer-run peer-to-peer group that mentors Latina TV and feature writers from staff to executive producers. LaListaTV was started by Judalina Neira and Diana Mendez after Mendez worked with Nkechi Okoro Carroll and heard about the Black Women Who Brunch (BWB) group. The Latina writers group membership has now swelled to over 125+ writers and continues growing.

“Latina writers are among the least represented group in Hollywood and our group is more critical than ever,” says Judalina Neira, who is a Co-Executive Producer on Netflix’s The Girls on the Bus.

“LaListaTV is one of our most successful initiatives,” Neira continues. “Every week we receive requests from showrunners, producers, and executives eager to access our spreadsheet of Latina writers.”

La Lista’s members desire and need to educate and assist each other with projects, advice, mentorship, and workshops that have helped to amplify these women writers and fill in the gap when it comes to finding writing talent. The group meets several times a year, “And we have our upper-level writers available to advise lower-level writers on anything from how to handle politics in the room to how to write and sell a pitch to how to find a good accountant,” says Mendez currently co-developing a pilot for Gaumont Television. “This group is about sisterhood and it’s about survival – helping each other stay in the game long enough to level up to creator and showrunner so that we can help other writers level up too.”

“With the statistics from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative highlighting the need for more inclusion, and the WGA stating that less than 5% of writers are Latinx, LaListaTV wanted to do what we do best once again: Help each other rise up,”  says Emilia Serrano, currently a Co-EP on High School Musical | The Musical: The Series? on Disney+.

“We’re constantly brainstorming ways to show the industry that we’re here at every level, and we’re never giving up.”

For more information, please email LaListaTV@gmail.com

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With the recent troubles between writers versus agents–the WGA-ATA standoff, here’s some good news for WGAw members.

According to various media interpretations, here is what we do know:

Total earnings have hit an all-time high of $1.56 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31. It is up 4.2% from the previous year, as is being reported in the guild’s latest annual report. For seven years in a row, earnings have topped the $1 billion mark. The guild began distributing the funds in 1993 and has made the foreign levies report to members. The report said the WGA West has collected a total of $266 million in foreign levies and distributed $231 million of those funds to members.

According to the guild report, earnings from television and digital platforms topped $1 billion for the second year in a row, coming it at nearly $1.07 billion – up 3% from the prior year. Total employment was down 1.5% from 2017, however, with 4,830 writers reporting income from television and digital platforms, though the guild said that this figure is likely to increase with late reporting.

Screenwriters’ earnings surged 7.3% last year to $481 million, and the number of writers reporting earnings rose 3.9% to 1,940. TV and digital platform writers’ earnings gained 3% to $1.07 billion, and the number of writers working declined by 1.5% to 4,830. According to the guild, the actual numbers for TV writers’ compensation are not reflected in its figures because it does not include overscale income, which is a big source of the conflict between the guild and talent agencies.

Collected residuals jumped 7.2% to $462 million with TV residuals jumping 10% to $307 million as new media residuals surged 16.5% to $76.5 million. New media residuals were a major gain in the WGA’s 100-day strike in 2007-08. Film residuals edged up 1.1% to $155 million.

The guild said that it “remains financially strong, with growing revenues and a healthy operating surplus,” ending the fiscal year with total net assets of over $77.5 million.

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