Carnegie Mellon University
March 06, 2013

Press Release: Carnegie Mellon Senior Wins America's Newest Screenwriter Contest

Contact: Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo@cmu.edu

Screenwriters Contest LogoPITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University Senior Madelyn Glymour has won the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Alliance for Family Entertainment's (AFE) Search for America's Newest Screenwriter Contest. Glymour, who received the top honor in the college category for her script titled "Nuclear," was awarded a $2,500 cash prize.

AFE holds the contest to support its mission to "find, nurture, develop and support, high-quality content the entire family can enjoy." Writers are asked to submit original scripts for a 30-minute comedy or one-hour drama that depicts modern family life with a multi-generational appeal. Over the past 10 years, AFE has helped to bring more than 20 primetime successful programs to air.

"Nuclear," a drama, is about Julia Bialik-Brown, a family lawyer who helps her clients get the most out of their divorces while trying to navigate her own dysfunctional family life.

"Madelyn Glymour is a smart, funny, and a culturally observant writer," said Sharon Dilworth, associate professor of English. "She has that uncanny ability to know what is current and it's that aspect of her talent that will probably serve her the best. The award will get her in the door and I can see her making tons of contacts, impressing people out in Hollywood.  I see her writing the next new hit. I can't tell you what it will be — but I'm sure she can."

Glymour, a logic and computation major with a minor in creative writing, entered the contest because she had always wanted to write a TV pilot. She is also in the Humanities Scholars Program, a four-year interdisciplinary program for Dietrich College undergraduates, and has been on the staff of the Tartan — CMU's student newspaper — for two years.

On finding out that she won, Glymour said, "Winning was great, and obviously I was happy to get the money, but mostly, as a writer, I was just happy that somebody had responded to my story. At that point, I hadn't shown the script to anyone except the contest judges, and winning made it a lot easier to share it with people - including my own family. Television writing is what I'd like to do for a living someday, so it's definitely a good thing to be able to show your writing to other people."

For more information, visit http://www.scriptwritercontest.com/.

To learn more about the humanities at Carnegie Mellon, watch this video: http://youtu.be/DFdHcQN-Chs.

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