Terp Blogger to Screenwriter

By Katie Takacs English alumna Stefanie Williams (B.A 2008) understands that writing can be hard, but she also knows that giving up is never an option, which led her to what she said is her biggest accomplishment – signing with United Talent Agency.

“I was told to quit trying more times than I could count. Told to ‘get a real job.’ But I never gave up,” Williams said. “Every time a door was shut, I’d knock on another one. I never stopped believing that my writing would find a home.”

Williams began blogging in 2008 when she was laid off from a marketing firm, a job she said she hated. She began work as a bartender, where she shared her stories with regulars at the bar.

With encouragement from other people, Williams used what little knowledge of HTML she had and started a blog, chasingthejersey.blogspot.com, about her experiences, which were mostly about unconventional writing topics.

Williams went on to write for other websites, such as the Huffington Post, Salon, Sports Grid, and Brobible. Brobile published her articles, linking them to her site, and she was given interviews on the Alan Colmes radio show and ESPN radio.

“I found ways to get my stuff out there that seemed random and unorthodox,” Williams said. “But they helped because they were usually geared toward a crowd that was more open to what I was writing about.”

After watching shows with similar topics and styles of writing, Williams said she got the idea to try a pilot television show. She threaded together different chapters of her blog, creating a background and story line, resulting in an hour long script.

After Williams had written her pilot script, she messaged 50 agents, whom she found on Facebook. She met with Peter Benedek, a partner at United Talent Agency, who then paired her with Television Lit. agent Allan Haldeman.

“Peter is a very big name in Hollywood. He is very well respected,” Williams said. “Having him in my corner, going to bat for me, vouching for me, is the greatest thing that could have happened to me.”

Williams said that everything came after that. She worked with showrunner Kenny Neibert, who has also worked for several seasons on Entourage and developed shows for FX and NBC.

Since being signed with United Talent Agency, Williams and Neibert have been working on developing a pitch document for their show.

“I think blogging is more about sharing a concept and thought, whereas writing for TV is more about sharing a story and a moment,” Williams said. “In blogs you can use big words and long sentences to convey an idea. For TV writing I feel like you have to really close your eyes and picture how something would be in reality and write it exactly that way.”

When Williams originally came to the University of Maryland, she wanted to become a journalism major, but after loading up a semester with classes she wasn’t good at, she decided to declare English instead.

Williams said that being an English major felt more natural, and she liked that she was able to take classes about different kinds of writing styles.

“I took poetry classes and performance classes, grammar classes that helped me learn to express my ideas more thoughtfully, more concisely, and I think it was just kind of a great life lesson of ‘you don’t always have to follow the rules to be good at writing,’“ Williams said.

English professor Michael Olmert has had a particular influence on William’s writing throughout her undergraduate education into her career.

“Every class I took with Mike Olmert – I think it was four or five all together – was a constant reminder that to be a good writer you just had to be passionate about it,” Williams said.

Williams said that Olmert taught her that just because a certain piece of writing wasn’t conventional didn’t mean it wasn’t good enough to be something special.

“You can’t write good literature about good people. Good people are boring,” Olmert said.

Olmert said that he believes in order to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. He said that Williams’s writing well is a function of reading good literature – something that the university’s English Department takes pride in.

“We push students through great literature. If you’re not in a course that makes you write, get out of it,” Olmert said. “You know something not when you can talk about it, but when you can read it, think about it, and then write about what you are thinking.”

After writing for television for 30 years, Olmert said that he understands the difficulties of Williams’s career path – Williams is the first student he has seen follow it.

Both Olmert and Williams said that they know that her success came slightly from good luck. However, Olmert said that he knows she made that luck happen.

“She’s not afraid to work hard. She took my classes, so I know she wasn’t afraid to sign up for difficult courses,” Olmert said. “She’s confident. She’s not going to defer to anyone. She was always like that when she was in my class.”

“If you want to be a writer, if you love writing, you have to refuse to let anyone tell you you aren’t good enough,” Williams said. “You can’t be afraid to shake up the writing world. You’re never going to rewrite Plath. Or Shakespeare. Or Salinger. Or Twain. Nor should you want to. You should want to blaze your own trail, be your own writer.”