While the debate over to MFA or to not MFA rages on, never has it been easier for anyone, anywhere, to access great and insightful lessons on how to improve as screenwriters. Below are five of our favorite screenwriting podcasts – but there are many more out there, so don’t let this list be the end of your podcast exploration!
The OG of screenwriting podcasts, updating since 2011 with over 450 episodes. With a catalog that large, hosts John August and Craig Maizin, each with over 20 years of professional writing experience, have covered pretty much everything about “screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters”, as the intro promises. They’ve even set up a useful Listener’s Guide to help you find what you’re looking for. Older episodes are behind a paywall, but the transcripts for all episodes are available and free to anyone.
A newer podcast which only launched in March of 2020, The Screenwriting Life has already built up an impressive reputation as a great source for guidance and inspiration. This is due in no small part to hosts Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna – Meg has long been a must-see speaker at screenwriting conferences, and Lorien matches her for insight and passion. A great and accessible podcast for getting at the meaty questions of how to be a screenwriter and leave feeling excited to get back to your writing.
Two Aussie screenwriters, Chas Fisher and Stuart Willis, take a methodical and results based approach to analyzing screenwriting, setting up a central topic for each episode and then examining various produced scripts to analyze and learn/steal from for their own writing. Very granular, and hosted by writers on the verge of breaking through, it’s a great, workman like approach to improving at screenwriting one script at a time.
Most of the podcasts on this list are primarily features focused, with some television discussion thrown in. Children of Tendu, though, is 100% tv focused. Hosted by two experienced writer/producers – Javier Grillo-Marxauch and Jose Molina – it digs into everything you need to know about making it in the world of TV, from writing your first spec to getting staffed to how to run a room. Their decades of friendship makes for a fun, hangout listen – the only downside is their sporadic update schedule, dictated by hiring cycles of TV.
The Screenwriters Network Podcast
Come on, you had to know this was coming. But we’re not just plugging our podcast because it’s our website (though that doesn’t hurt). The Screenwriters Network Podcast does a great job focusing in on writers just as they’re getting their first break in the industry – first sale, first rep, first Black List placement – and talk through what brought them to that point. Just like this blog, the point isn’t to give an authoritative view of how to be a screenwriter – instead, it’s to show the process of writers just a step or two further along on the path than those listening in, an important POV in a world of podcasts largely run by either amateurs or well-established professionals (both of which have their own use!)
Honorable Mention
Like we said at the start, these are just our five favorite podcasts at this moment, but once you make your way through these there are plenty more to check out. Members of the Screenwriters Network have put together this far more thorough list of podcasts, including some that are no longer updating but are still worth tracking down – http://tinyurl.com/SNPodcastRecs – whatever you’re looking for, you’re sure to find it somewhere on these lists.
Have we missed a favorite screenwriting podcast of yours? Let us know in the comments!
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