CAROL JACOBS is a filmmaker who has created award-winning programming for networks including AMC, PBS, and Discovery, and helped launch the teen-focused music channel Fuse. She earned an MFA in film production from NYU and was selected to participate in AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women. She has produced everything from scripted videos with SNL comedians including AMC’s Liza Life Coach series to specials with The Muppets. Since 2016, Carol has been writing and directing children’s videos for publishers, including Scholastic, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Vista Higher Learning that use humor and dramatic storytelling to ignite interest in reading.
LAURIE ULSTER is a freelance writer and a TV producer who somehow survived her very confusing adolescence as the lone female Star Trek fan in middle school. Her eclectic TV career includes a dream gig as supervising producer on a Star Trek: Discovery aftershow. She writes about TV and parenting in equal measure; her work has appeared in Emmy Magazine and on sites like CBS Watch, Biography, The Watercooler, Scary Mommy, and The Bump. Books she has co-written include an official companion guide to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Teen Parenting: Surviving the Eye Roll Years. Laurie co-hosts the All Access Star Trek podcast, which celebrated its 100th episode with guest Aaron Waltke, EP on Nickelodeon’s Star Trek: Prodigy. Visit Laurie’s website.
LEANNE FRENCH is a writer/producer and proud daughter of a Broadway dancer who not only taught her how to tap dance, but to love the arts and all forms of storytelling. As the Digital Director for A+E Networks’ Biography, she produced digital series for Biography and the History Channel including American Freedom Stories about the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. She has created multi-platform content for Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, Fuse, and AMC, and has written about everything from historical figures to pop culture and parenting to the origin story of mermaids for the kids podcast Who Smarted? Leanne is a member of the picture book writing community 12x12 and owns a rapidly growing collection of children’s books.
