Reel/Forward Conference
Saturday, 9/6
Emerson LA Campus
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM SCRIPTING SUSTAINABILITY: CLIMATE STORIES ARE EVERYONE’S STORIES
From adult animation and comedy shorts, to prestige dramas and “Cli Fi”, the impacts of climate change are being written across all genres. Our panelists will discuss compelling ways to talk about tough topics, from the devastation caused by extreme weather events to hopeful technologies and positive culture shifts.Eco-conscious writers and showrunners share their pursuit of sustainable storytelling onscreen, while ensuring climate friendly practices behind the camera. This panel shows that sustainability can be included in the stories we tell (and even in dirty jokes).
SPEAKERS:
Elijah Aron is a television writer and executive producer whose credits include It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Better Off Ted, Raising Hope, Son of Zorn, Life in Pieces, BoJack Horseman, Undone, and Long Story Short (premiering August 22 on Netflix). He has been nominated for an Emmy and three Writers Guild Awards, winning the WGA Award in 2023 for Undone. His BoJack Horseman episode “Fish Out of Water” was named the best television episode of the year by both Time and Variety. A part-time environmental activist, Elijah is currently producing a series of animated comedy shorts about climate change for Now What?! Productions and Yellow Dot Studios.
Lynn Renee Maxcy is a screenwriter, storyteller and social justice advocate. She is most known for writing on Seasons 1-3 of Hulu’s Emmy-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale and the branching narrative feature The Complex, available on all major gaming platforms. She has written projects for Amazon, Syfy and Paramount+, Imagine and more.
Lynn’s advocacy work includes being Chair of the Board for Miry’s List, a Los Angeles-based non-profit providing practical, individualized support to new arrival refugee families. She joined Good Energy‘s Advisory Council in 2025, supporting tv and film creators in telling wildly entertaining stories honestly reflecting the climate crisis world we live in. She is the former Governor of the Writers Peer Group for the Television Academy / Emmys. She splits her time between Los Angeles and London.
Noah Griffith and Daniel Stewart are Emmy-nominated writers and producers. Together, they have worked on Sweet Tooth, Swamp Thing, and Stephen King’s The Mist. They have also sold television and feature projects to Netflix, Sony/Columbia, Screen Gems, Lionsgate, Atomic Monster, The Safran Company, and more.
Carmiel Banasky‘s career spans novels, television, film, and audio, and she is a leader in climate storytelling. Since staffing on the Amazon show Undone, for which she wrote a climate-related episode, she created a two-season, climate-centred sci-fi podcast for Wondery, The Last City, starring Rhea Seehorn, which reached #1 in fiction. She also co-wrote a short film starring Margaret Cho, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, and which she’s developing into a feature. She’s the author of the critically-acclaimed novel The Suicide of Claire Bishop. She was a Film Independent Fellow, and Unreasonable Conversation Climate Storytelling Fellow. She spent four years on the road at writing fellowships, including time on a ship in the Arctic, studying and writing about the climate crisis. As VP of Editorial for the nonprofit Good Energy, she co-led the development of the Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change.
Moderated by: Kathy Nicholas, conservation & sustainability communicator, and WiM VP of Programs.
Tickets at https://womennmedia.com/event/reel-forward/
