Pulling Your Hair Out: Conversations About The Writing Process

Kiyong Kim was born in Korea and grew up in Los Angeles before going to art school in Boston. He studied Illustration at the Massachusetts College of Art, and took creative writing classes at Emerson College where he first discovered what a script was. After graduating, he moved back to Los Angeles and focused on writing and directing. His first script, Brobot, placed 4th in the Slamdance Screenwriting Competition. Since then, he’s written and directed short films that have won contests, played at festivals, and have been licensed for distribution. Kiyong decided to focus on television writing, and was chosen for the Nickelodeon Writing Fellowship, the NBC Writers on the Verge program, and the CAAM Fellowship, where Kourtney Kang was his mentor. He works full time as a Graphic Designer pushing pixels around by day, and works on scripts and an animated web series on nights and weekends. “I need to see the small wins for me. And make it an achievable thing to aim for. Otherwise it's so overwhelming, this thing

Melynda Bissmeyer is a grad of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has developed and managed projects and productions in film, theater and new media for MTV Networks, Blue Man Group and Fox and worked as a freelance journalist for Premiere, Spin, Rolling Stone, Conde Nast Travel and The Village Voice. Her television scripts have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Scriptapalooza, the Page Screenwriting Awards and Final Draft’s Big Break. She currently has a feature in development with producer Emily Ting of Unbound Feet Productions. "The biggest thing for me is I will be very open to notes about plot and structure and characters. But the one thing I do know is I know my voice as a writer and I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not as good at." • Melynda Bissmeyer on Twitter   // Pulling Your Hair Out is produced and hosted by Richard Lowe. Music by Joshua Moshier.

Joanne Lee is a comedy writer whose pilot, Unplanned, finished in the top ten of the 2017 Final Draft Big Break contest. She studied improvisation and sketch writing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and performed stand up in New York City. She is repped by APA. "I believe ideas are living energies and they come to you. If you don't foster them and you don't commit to them, they'll go to somebody else. I do think it's a magical thing from the other side that you're trying to bring to life." • Script Anatomy Writing Workshop • The WGA Library • The Den Meditation Studio • "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert • Fleabag on Amazon Prime   // Pulling Your Hair Out is produced and hosted by Richard Lowe. Music by Joshua Moshier.

Nihar Patel has been a writer/producer on comedy variety shows and pilots for ABC, AMC, Nickelodeon, Current, and created scripted series’ for YouTube Channels Awesomeness TV, Rhett & Link, and yomyomf. He has written humor pieces for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Splitsider, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vice.com, and had a feature film script optioned in 2010. He has also worked as a director of TV sketch and field comedy, most recently for TBS’s Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. He began his career working as a producer/reporter for NPR. He was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area where he spent most of his time working at his parents’ video store. “This is something now that I’ve been able to look at over maybe 15 years of writing... I feel like if [the piece] was ultimately driven a little bit by what I was feeling rather than what I was thinking, I tend to think I am investing more in it.” • Nihar Patel on Twitter • "Yes, I Have Seen Master of None" on McSweeney's   // Pulling You