WENDALL THOMAS | AUTHOR
Author Wendall Thomas @ Book Soup
SHORT BIO:
Wendall Thomas teaches in the Graduate Film School at UCLA, directs the Originate Genre initiative for VicScreen, lectures internationally on screenwriting, and has worked as an entertainment reporter, development executive, script consultant, and film and television writer. Her first Cyd Redondo novel, Lost Luggage, was nominated for the Lefty and Macavity Awards for Best Debut Mystery, her second, Drowned Under, was nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original Mystery as well as a Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery. Fogged Off was a finalist for Best Humorous Mystery and the fourth, Cheap Trills, was the Lefty Award Winner for Best Humorous Mystery of 2023. Her short fiction appears in the crime anthologies Ladies Night, Last Resort, the Anthony nominated Murder-A-Go-Go’s, Crime Under the Sun, and Hollywood Kills.
FULL BIO:
Since receiving her M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina, Wendall Thomas has worked in Los Angeles as a casting assistant, director's assistant, script reader, story editor, development executive, entertainment reporter, script consultant, and screenwriter, writing and developing projects for companies including Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, Showtime, PBS, RKO, A&E, NBC, Scottish Screen, and Australia’s Tojohage Productions.
Her novel, Lost Luggage (Poisoned Pen Press), was nominated for the Lefty and Macavity Awards for Best Debut Mystery. Her second Cyd Redondo book, Drowned Under, was nominated for a Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery and the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. Fogged Off was nominated for a Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery and her fourth, Cheap Trills, was the Lefty Award Winner for Best Humorous Mystery of 2023. Her short fiction appears in the crime anthologies Ladies Night, Last Resort, Murder A-Go-Gos, Crime Under the Sun, and Hollywood Kills. She also blogs with eight other international mystery writers at Murder is Everywhere (https://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/).
In addition to writing and consulting, she is in her twenty-ninth year as Adjunct Professor of Screenwriting in the Graduate Film School at UCLA, has been a Star Speaker for Creative Screenwriting’s Screenwriting Expo, and runs the Living Room Lecture series. She has consulted for the Atelier du Cinéma Européen Producing Program in Paris, served as Writer’s Mentor for Screen South’s Good Foundations program, and directed the LA FEATURES writer’s mentorship program in the UK. She also consults for Australia's Film Victoria, Screen Australia, the South Australia Film Corporation, and the New Zealand Film Commission, was the Director of Screen Queensland's SQ PROJECTOR program for emerging feature filmmakers as well as their RE-TOLD diversity program, and their joint STAGE TO SCREEN initiative with the La Boîte Theatre. She is currently director of VicScreen’s ORIGINATE GENRE lecture and mentorship program for 2025/2026.
As a lecturer, she has worked throughout Europe for the Arista Screenwriting Workshops and in the U.K. for the Welsh and Northern Irish Film Commissions, Northern Film and Media, the Folkstone Literary Festival, and Screen South. She has also presented a series of dialogue and rewrite workshops for the New Zealand Film Commission and was opening speaker for the Santa Fe Screenwriting Conference. She presented her "Wendall Thomas Talks Scripts" series at the Melbourne International Film Festival from 2011 through 2018, and has given over 20 lectures on elements of screenwriting for Screen Queensland.
Her students and clients have won the Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood Horrorfest, and UCLA Screenwriting Competitions, and the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, been finalists in the Academy Nicholls Fellowship, the Page International Screenplay Awards, the Save the Cat! Screenplay Challenge, the Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, HBO’s short film showcase, and the Goes to Cannes Showcase and have written or produced projects for Netflix, Sony, Fox, Showtime, NBC, HBO, Warner Brothers, MTV Films, and Amazon.