Breaking Down the First 5 Pages, Barriers, and More With Screenwriter Lindsay Stidham

Screenwriter, podcaster, professor; Lindsay Stidham is a powerhouse writer. She is also, quite possibly even more important, an advocate for other screenwriters. Stidham learned from the best and is leveraging that knowledge to pay it forward to the next generation of screenwriters. Amidst the uncertainty of Hollywood, she is the real deal.

Becoming Katie Couric … Kind of.

Stidham’s eclectic upbringing began attending elementary school in the Netherlands before moving Stateside. “My dad wanted us to feel American, and so he moved us back to Florida, which is a very shocking place to move after living in the Netherlands. I went to junior high, high school and undergrad in Florida; I went to the University of Florida and majored in journalism. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I just initially thought that I was going to be Katie Couric.

"Someone actually recently asked if I’ve always had a bob, and I said yes. I mean, not in high school, I had long hair then. But at University they said, ‘Nobody will take you seriously if you have long hair.’ So those were my days of journalism school: If you want anybody to take you seriously, cut your hair. I did, and immediately landed the anchor position—so it worked out for me,” she laughs.

“I worked for local NPR stations, and I did the local news. And, you know, it was really good training to be a writer. You had to start out with who, what, where, why. The why most importantly.”

Then came the journalism offer in Kansas, but Stidham chose to follow the yellow brick road down a different path.

“I was like, I don't know if I want to move to Kansas for very little money and report on, like, cats and trees, but that's where you start in broadcast journalism. Which, I get that; you have to pay your dues. It's just like film in that way, that you have to pay your dues so heavily. So, I went, well, if I'm gonna be broke, let's go for the gold!

"And I also did a lot of improv in college, took a bunch of creative writing classes, and that got me wondering, what does it feel like to write fiction? The combo of all those things is I really enjoy inventing stories, and I was a cocky, gung-ho twenty-one-year-old dying to live in a city! I wanted to live in New York or Los Angeles, I didn’t want to move anywhere else. So, I thought, maybe film school can get me there?”

Lindsay applied to several film schools and then made the move to L.A. at twenty-one to study screenwriting at the American Film Institute. “I was thrilled they took me! And when you get into AFI, you gel,” she laughs easily—as though that feat were an easy thing.

Breaking In Big Time: The Sundance Connection

“I got really lucky, and I got a posse of people at AFI. I made several films with my ex-boyfriend, Drake Doremus, who was also my writing partner at the time. And I also attribute a lot of this to my mentor, Barry Sabath. He’s my mentor to this day, and I adore him. He really advocated for some of our early films. Barry’s still an incredible teacher over at AFI.

It was also the first recession I’ve survived, and [the Mumblecore genre] was exploding—we felt very inspired by Mumblecore. We thought if this is a movie, then we can make one. So, we shot a film called Douchebag for very little money that went to Sundance. It was really two actors, a sound person, Drake, myself, and the DP, and that was pretty much it! We made a little Mumblecore rom-com, and it was so fun. We made three movies together, back-to-back: Spooner, Douchebag, and MoonPie.”

Full Circle Momentum from Student to Teacher

Stidham is currently paying it forward to the next generation of screenwriters in her professor role at USC.  

Prior to that, “I started at the New York Film Academy. At the time there were some other AFI people teaching there who recommended me. Then I took a little break and helped launch some start-ups, so I worked in tech for a while. Launching start-ups felt like exactly the same business, to be honest,” Stidham recalls.

“Crazy grind, raising the money and financing. How long can you last? How long can your pipeline of money last, basically, and then on the other end, hopefully you're selling something successfully. Otherwise, your startup is gonna end!” She chuckles. “It was honestly like my production experience of having made three really small movies at that point that helped, but then I got burned out and wasn’t making any money. I realized, ‘oh, this is just the same grind as making movies—and I really missed [doing that].

Then I had a friend recommend me for a job at USC, and I'm still at USC. I feel like USC really taught me how to be a teacher. I love teaching screenwriting there. I also teach some production and some screenwriting at Cal State, Long Beach.”

Screenwriter At Heart

When she’s not teaching others how to, Stidham is writing, most recently, Antipasta, a romantic historical drama that was a Stowe Story Labs Selected Project 2025.

“Lately, I've been living in historical fiction, which I really enjoy. I feel like it gets people's attention, because you can sort of say it’s IP. Although my latest is really made up, based on the mythology of the time when Mussolini banned pasta in Italy. That part is true, but historically it’s not well-documented. But there was a resistance movement of making and sharing pasta with others—the anti-fascist movement in Italy was grounded in feeding each other pasta. Right now, it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written. But I haven’t taken it out yet, so we’ll see,” she laughs.

Stidham’s hustle mentality is real, with several other projects on the go as well. Another historical, called Punks Never Die that’s “Way more grounded in reality. I've spent a lot of time interviewing Alice Bag of the Bags [one of L.A.’s earliest punk bands]; she’s awesome! It’s a three POV story between three different women, and Alice is one of them, Esther Wong, who owns Madame Wong's is another. Esther has since passed away, so there's definitely a bit of invention around her story. Although, many people have spent years of their life going to that club, and I've met a lot of them. I also got to meet the person who booked back in the day, Paul Greenstein, and he has been an incredible resource as well. Then there's a character who is a writer, and she is invented. She's an aspiring punk journalist.

I also have a pilot that has, like, I feel like been an ‘almost’ a million times. It’s called Couple World, and it's a sci-fi rom com. And in couple world, if you are not coupled by the time you're 30, you are disappeared—you become ‘Invisisingle.'”

While Stidham loves writing in the television landscape, “I’ve had more success in features. So, I have a tendency to write those more.”

Bits and Pieces, for example. A road-trip horror comedy that’s in development with Neon Heart about a queer man and his best female friend, who also happens to be pregnant, “Because we realize that story has not been told, which is crazy! So, to me, that's a really unique combo of people, and I definitely have a dream cast for it, and I hope that we are able to make the movie. I’ve been [working on] that one for a long time, and just learning that that's the way with features; sometimes it's years of your life.”

All these projects are proof that, as a screenwriter, you are your best advocate. Believe, and just keep going on your own—even if it’s on your own. Stidham is pushing them all forward of her own volition. She’s still seeking representation (though grateful to have attorney Paul Miloknay in her back pocket!).

The First Five Podz

In keeping with her journalistic and teaching roots, Stidham’s come full circle from radio to podcast with the recent launch of the awesome little podcast: "The First Five Podz" with Wonder Peak Media. Yet another form of both hustle that’s filled with heart, as Stidham’s goal with the podcast is education for screenwriters.

“I always have too many ideas in my head. Just constantly. And Daniel literally just called me on the phone one day to see if I had a podcast idea. And I said, I have five. Then I think I only pitched him "The First Five" and he was like, ‘That one, that one, that one.’

"Daniel Herther is a talented producer that I know through writing. I really hope I get to work with him eventually in that capacity, as well. He’s good at spotting trends. And he's like, everything is going to be YouTube. I think he's correct, everything is going to be YouTube. Even Instagram.

"And I love media of all forms, which may be to my detriment,” Stidham chuckles, because “I say yes to probably too many things! But my very first job in media was a radio station. And I love audio. I always have. I love journalism, still. I like interviewing people, and I’m curious about people, as well. And from the teaching perspective, I like the idea of tearing down the gates and making screenwriting education available to everybody.

"I think you're ready to write one if you’ve read a bunch [of screenplays]. So, studying scripts, obviously, is really satisfying to me, and that's the premise of the podcast. We delve into the first five pages of original scripts and famous scripts. I'm hoping to be able to shoot a series about the Oscar scripts this year, if I can squeeze it in.

"A lot of times my students come in [never having read a script]; it's crazy to me that you want to write a screenplay, and you've never read one! And I want to say, 90% of the time when they start my class, they've never read a script. So, hey, if I can advocate for people to actually read screenplays, I love that idea. And also to make the education available and universal to everyone, I think is important. We need more perspectives than we're getting right now from Hollywood.”

And that’s exactly what "The First Five Podz" offers, available to stream wherever you listen to your podcasts. The passion project is recorded in the same space as @ghosttownpod, because “My best friend in the world actually just turned her garage into a podcast studio. She has a wonderful podcast called "Ghost Town" that I highly recommend. And I have a wonderful intern right now, Rebecca Diaz, and she's really taught me a lot about social media. That landscape changes rapidly, and she’s given me like a boot camp in CapCut. So right now, it's just the two of us. We're putting episodes out every other week, and I'm just trying to squeeze it in as much as I can.”

It can be a beautiful thing, venturing into uncharted media.

“It's getting a chance to reconnect with friends; it’s forcing me to reach out to people I already love and adore and don't see or talk to enough. I have a wealth of so many talented friends, so no shortage of people to interview.

Of course, everybody wants to monetize, I'm not gonna lie. I'm doing this as hopefully, eventually, an extra income stream. And I am the type of person that would love to reinvest it in more media. I’m trying to finance one movie personally, and or raise the money for that movie, and then also helping to sell [it] to others, more in the studio system. So, my dream in general, is to have a media empire and be able to just refinance money into films in a perfect world. I love to finance other people's movies, too. That would be a freaking dream!

"And I do think podcasts are—especially now that everything is visual, and everything is video—a super powerful way to test a TV idea. I have two TV pilot ideas that I might do in podcast form, because they're really simple. I have access. All you need is your iPhone now to shoot a podcast premise of a pilot. It's like, why not?”

But back to "The First Five!"

“We are open to outside guests! I love meeting people, expand my network and know what inspires other people and keeps them going. Right now, we're going through so many changes in the business. DM us!”

Advice From Along the Way

“If you’ve got a wave, you gotta ride it,” Stidham advises, and, “Don’t let something sit in development too long.” It’s all about balance and keeping momentum. Something Stidham admits she still struggles with personally. While too long is the kiss of death, keep in mind that intimate relationships with people you go into the (film) business with need to be open. “It’s like dating. Take a trip together. Have five dinners.” Still think you can work together? Amazing. Also, have a short in your back pocket; the feature written already. Because in Hollywood, it’s all about IP. And Stidham has several.

Solid advice all around from someone so prolific.

*Feature photo: Lindsay Stidham