Donor Spotlight - Veterans Writing Project Group Nine
Introducing another edition of Donor Spotlight, the blog series where we highlight donors to the Writers Guild Foundation and their reasons for giving. We’re only able to provide our programs and resources for the screenwriting community because of our donors’ generous support. Thank you to our spotlighted donors — and all of our donors — for your generosity!
Veterans Writing Project Group Nine with two of their mentors at the Capstone Retreat in January 2025. (From left to right: John Rice, Ernesto Haibi, Scott Wagner, Mary Jo McConnell, Alex Wright, Bret Murphy. Not pictured: Ryan Murtha)
The Veterans Writing Project is WGF’s year-long screenwriting program where military veterans learn how to write a screenplay and navigate the entertainment industry. How do they learn these screenwriting fundamentals? Through guidance and mentorship from WGA member mentors!
This past spring after the conclusion of the 2024-25 cohort, Bret Murphy, Ernesto Haibi, Mary Jo McConnell, Ryan Murtha, and Scott Wagner (a.k.a. “Group Nine”) decided to donate to WGF in honor of their mentors. In their own words, these vets share how they worked together throughout the program, key takeaways from their mentors’ wisdom, and why tribute gifts were the perfect way to tell their mentors “thank you”.
How were you all introduced to the Writers Guild Foundation? Were you engaged with us before the Veterans Writing Project, or was that your very first time interacting with us?
Scott: I was not engaged at all! I heard about the Veterans Writing Project from an email that I got from the Blacklist of all places. I was really kind of unaware about what the Writers Guild Foundation was and the programs that you do, and so joining the Veterans Writing Project and seeing all of the different things that the Writers Guild Foundation does was kind of mind boggling to me.
Bret: Yeah, I think I just saw [the Foundation] on the Internet somehow. Maybe it was through Reddit or something like that. They talked about [the Veterans Writing Project] and it was like, “Wow, this is like the one program that fits me because I'm not young, but I am a vet! I qualify for that.” I came from playwriting, and I was trying to get into screenwriting at the time, so it just kind of fit perfectly. It all worked out great.
MJ: I came in through VME: Veterans in Media and Entertainment. They sponsored an intro video where I was able to find out about the program and have the courage to apply.
Ryan: I first heard of the Project via Facebook and the Chapman Film Connection back in 2018 or 19, and so every year after that I applied. I finally got in on my fifth try.
It’s very exciting to me that the Veterans Writing Project was the introduction to the Foundation for all of you, and I'm curious about what your experience with the program was like. I know it's a very long program and there's a lot you could probably talk about. Maybe we can start with what was it like when you all first met?
Bret: We should say something right off the bat. MJ and I joined later, so we didn't go to the [Weekend Retreat kickoff event]. We started about, I think, two meetings after everyone else started.
MJ: I came in off the waitlist so I felt really fortunate that a spot opened up and that I was invited in. Missed the whole retreat!
Bret: But the Capstone Retreat in January was great! That was the first time we actually met in person. And I think we got along great. I wish we had more time. I'm in North Carolina, some of us are in Seattle and wherever, so it's not possible to meet more in person, but it was such a good experience to interact personally in that way. I think after that meeting we formed an even stronger bond than we had up until that point. I did at least, I felt that way.
MJ: The Capstone Retreat was so amazing just to be physically in the same space. And I think my mentors had a different experience of me in that place than they previously had online. You know, being online is a different beast, doing everything on Zoom in these little boxes. It's a different animal. I think being in-person at the Capstone Retreat was really a wonderful way to feel each other's energy. And Ryan unfortunately wasn't able to be at the Capstone Retreat at the end of January. So we missed you, Ryan, but I have a feeling our paths will cross.
Ryan: It was great when Scott and I were there for the initial Retreat in June, and obviously I was out of town for the Capstone, but it was nice once we were able to meet, whether it was in-person or online. We connected not just through our general service and our passion for writing and the creative world, but also being like, “We all have these very different backgrounds in the service, in our specialties, so let’s work together with those differences.”
Scott: Yeah. I would even echo that a little stronger. Everyone in the whole program is bonded by the same sort of thing. You know, the variations are infinite, but everybody has that same sort of shared thing. To be in the same space with people like that—who are creative and who are seeking to tell stories and show their perspective on life, who all have that kind of thing that brings us all together—I mean, it was a really special sort of feeling. I felt very connected to everybody pretty much right away. And I'm sad Ernie's not here because he was the mayor of everything. He knew everybody instantly.
Bret: Yeah, he's a character!
Scott: Yeah and, like, it was just great. I mean, it was a very cool, unique experience that I've never quite ever had before.
MJ: And, you know, just speaking to the veteran experience, regardless of whether you're a combat veteran or however you served, putting on that uniform is an experience that maybe one percent of the population understands. Being in a room full of people who raised their hand and took an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, you know, that was pretty significant.
Let's say someone's reading this blog post and they have no idea what the Veterans Writing Project is or what goes on during the program or anything like that. How does this group come together? What do you do as a group?
Bret: I don't know if this is going to be a good thing to say or not, but to me it kind of felt like Basic Training again in the sense that our mentors didn't mess around. If they thought [the writing] was shit, they said it was shit!
MJ: Like drill sergeants, right?!
Ryan: That’s really true.
Bret: And I think, you know, I had my moment where I lost it and kind of went off and had a little tantrum, but then I got over myself. That's how I felt when I was going through Basic Training: you'd have these tantrums but then you'd just have to go over to the next step, and that's sort of how [the program] felt. You knew that it was all just trying to get the best work out of you. It wasn't mean spirited, really. It was really trying to help you see things in a different way. For me at least. Coming from the world of playwriting I had to make a pretty big adjustment in my mind and sometimes I didn't see it that way. I think in the end they were right though. The mentors were right and the volunteers were right and the group was right.
Scott: Yeah, I mean, it was amazing to get the perspective of people who have written movies and have walked the path for so long. To have them really, truly, critically look at things—not just from a technical perspective, but from a truly creative, elemental level—and say, “This is exploding, this is where it's not,” I mean, for me that experience was absolutely mind-blowing. Just hearing the perspective of people who really know what they're talking about, hearing them put your work through that filter and then churning it out chewed up on the other side. I thought it was great. Like, my mom loves everything I write, but that's not helpful, you know? It felt extremely beneficial in ways that are hard to articulate because it really took everything and turned it upside down in a way that had never been done for me before. I am very grateful that I went through it.
MJ: This was my first experience writing a feature, and writing feels like a solitary art form. You’re partners with your computer. Being in a room where you're getting feedback from a lot of different voices and integrating that feedback and then returning to your solitary form and filtering it through your life experience and trying to come up with a screenplay that has commercial potential—all of those things were very, very new endeavors for me. I'm glad to have had my brothers here to go through it with me.
Ryan: Yeah, just to kind of echo, it's like we all come together and have that constructive criticism where it's not just a good-old-boy pat on the back, “Hey, I like it!” All of our mentors were constructively critical, and yeah, there was back and forth, but we were all building and constructing together. Then as mentees, we had the ability to connect after the fact. It's like, “Okay, so I think what Mentor A was saying was this,” and then it's like, “Oh, that's what that was! Okay,” as opposed to feeling hypercritical. It was a great opportunity to build in the room with them, coming from being solo to a team, and then breaking out and doing our own thing and continuing to heighten our vision.
You all have a lot to say about your mentors. Who were your mentors?
Bret: John Rice.
MJ: Alex Wright.
Scott: And Marie Weiss.
MJ: And Harsha Rao!
Scott: Harsha Rao was there for a chunk of it, and it was great when he was there.
Bret: And they're all different. They're all very different, but they really, I think, kind of synergistically came together.
MJ: There were times when even they didn't agree! So your mentors are putting in their disparate views and then you're processing those and trying to come up with a clear story.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, it was all about learning how to filter that which enhances your vision, because otherwise you end up with a really weird tasting soup. But if it's like, “Oh, you know what? I’m gonna add a little bit more salt and pepper here, but we're not going to add the vinegar.” Then okay, perfect. I've got the idea.
And especially with something as subjective as writing, I'm sure having all those different opinions and feedback on your work is a lot to sift through. Are there any nuggets of wisdom or advice that you got from your mentors that you still think about when it comes to your writing?
MJ: Don't suck!
Bret: And don’t be so thin skinned about it. In other words, you gotta be able to take criticism. You gotta be able to listen. You can't be defensive. It helps to be able to listen even when you don't want to listen.
Scott: Yeah. Like the ability to take notes was probably the biggest lesson I think everybody learned. And it was fascinating to hear the way they all thought about what made a movie. John used to say, “Is it 5th aisle?” Like, is it ready? Is it tightly wound and ready to explode? I internalized that a lot. I think trying to create a feature and create something that people are actually going to want to read and maybe see some day—outside of being able to peacefully take notes—being able to condense your idea into something that is ready to fissure and explode I thought was a really, really good nugget of advice that I got out of [the program].
Ryan: Just to actively listen and to take those notes. See if it shakes down and if it doesn't, you can come back and say, “Hey, I've tried X, Y, and Z and these worked and those didn't.” I mean, I had multiple times where I got feedback like, “Oh yeah, do this” and so I took those notes, created a new draft, wrote it out, and then everybody's like, “Nope, that doesn't work. Go back to what it was.” It’s that process of writing and rewriting to see what works while never taking offense to it.
MJ: And, really, for me it was learning to write what I saw. Not just what I wanted to say or what characters were saying to each other, but what's the frame look like? What's the cinematic vision that you’re capturing on a piece of paper? Because once you hand over that script, it's out of your hands. I mean, unless you're a very high-powered writer, right? You're handing it over, so it's basically a blueprint. You're trying to communicate that blueprint on a piece of paper.
All great pieces of advice! It seems like you’ve all definitely learned a lot from the mentors. At the end of the program, you decided to donate to the Foundation in honor of your mentors. How did you all come to that decision?
Bret: That was MJ's idea.
Scott: It was a great idea.
MJ: You know, we all knew collectively that we wanted to do something, right? But what? Another Starbucks gift card? Flowers? That just didn't make any sense. What made sense was to enable other people to get the benefit of [the mentors’] wisdom. I mean, without donations, the program can't continue. So the best way to honor their contribution was to enable their contribution in the future.
Bret: And we agreed with that! We just agreed with that and said, “Yeah, that’s good!”
Ryan: Ditto, ditto, ditto!
Bret: And the other thing, you know, I've been thinking about it in crass terms, in terms of “if we had to pay for this program, what would be the dollar amount?” And it would be astronomical! It would be multiple, multiple thousands of dollars, and so the least we could do is just to do this little thing that we did. You couldn’t put a price tag on it really—well you could, but it would be a lot of money. And, I mean, the donations of time that the mentors put in and that the volunteers put in and that the administrators put in…it’s just amazing. It's amazing.
MJ: And I will say that the website is well-crafted in terms of just simply the mechanism of being able to make that donation. Making it in honor of somebody, sending them an acknowledgement e-mail—all that was really easy through the Foundation’s website.
I'm glad to hear it was easy for you guys. Is there anything else that you would say to encourage other people to donate to the Foundation?
MJ: We’re all storytellers, right? And we're storytellers who served our country. So let's enable that storytelling to continue, because I think in our current political climate, having a voice is really, really important. This program gives people voice. It allowed me to be seen. This is the first time I ever applied to anything like this and, I have to tell you, I did not expect to be seen. That feeling of having my essays and my one short film that I wrote enabling me entry into a program of this caliber was really significant. I would say donating even just small amounts matters, and if it enables somebody else to have a voice, then just do it.
Ryan: To me it just shows like anything helps. Just doing what you can, whether it's a dollar or five, ten, one hundred, whatever it is, we all have our different fiscal backgrounds, but it just says “Hey, thank you.” And, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a tax deduction. So instead of grabbing five cups of coffee, write it off on your taxes and do it for a good cause!
MJ: And nothing against Starbucks, you know!
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Says the Pac Nor Westy!
Bret: I think that this program just needs to continue. I would be tremendously saddened if I learned someday that it just petered out or something. I mean, I don't think it will. I think it's a strong program. But it has to be renewed continually, and people do need to help out to continue it. Hopefully we will too! We'll continue to give money as best we can.
Scott: Yeah, and the Foundation does a lot of other things too, obviously. Like with the other programs and maintaining the library and all of that. It's an important thing for the history of cinema and screenwriting and we're all connected to that. I think our program was great and I think we all had a really great experience and we donated in that vein, but the Foundation does so many other things that are so beneficial to writers that it's like, why not give back?
And finally, what script or scripts would you recommend someone read next time they visit the library?
Scott: [At the Retreat] they were giving out copies of FYC scripts for us to read and I got Vice by Adam McKay. Oh my God, if you haven't read that one—I mean, if you haven't seen that one you need to get out from underneath whatever you're living in—but that screenplay is incredible. I've read it twice since I got it.
Bret: Yeah, I got that one too. I'm going to give one that Ernie talked to me about. He picked up a copy of Double Indemnity, which is like a 1940s movie and Billy Wilder wrote the script. But just to have that copy available to read, it blows my mind.
MJ: I had an interesting experience this Oscar season. I read the script for Anora before I saw the film and that was the first time I had ever done that. Reading that, the script just was flying, like the pages just felt like they were flying. And then to see the film and how it was realized, it was just such an extraordinary experience. Now when I read a script, I'm analyzing things as I go because now I have this new framework by which to kind of assess things.
Ryan: To me, there are so many screenplays, and we all have our different interests. I would just say, “Hey, when you're there, go and find your favorite movie, whatever it is, and then read it, and see how it inspires you.” Whether it's something like Pulp Fiction, which is weaving and in this kind of different format where you don't know what you're getting as you're reading it, or if it’s a standard three act classic hero's journey—whatever lit the fire of writing under your butt, go to the library and read that script in its raw organic form!
If you’d like to join Bret, Ernie, MJ, Ryan, and Scott and become a donor to the Writers Guild Foundation, click here!