Panelists:
Alfred Thomas Catalfo — Alfred Thomas Catalfo is an award-winning screenwriter, director, actor (SAG-AFTRA), and an attorney. He has been a winner or finalist in more than 50 major screenwriting competitions with five different feature scripts. Highlights include winning the Grand Prize in the Rhode Island International Film Festival Screenplay Competition, winning the Nashville Film Festival Screenwriting Competition two years in a row, Top 6 Finalist in the Austin Film Festival Feature Script Competition, First Prize in the Fade In Awards True Story/Biopic Script Competition, and writing two of the three Finalists in the prestigious Nantucket Film Festival Tony Cox Feature Screenplay Competition, an unprecedented achievement. He was selected for the Stowe Story Labs where he was mentored by two-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter David Magee (“Life of Pi”). Alfred has written, produced and directed nine acclaimed, award-winning short films that have been featured at leading festivals and on Entertainment Weekly’s Must List (“Ten Things We Love This Week”).
Brinda Charry — Born and raised in India, Brinda Charry moved to the United States in 1999 and has lived in New Hampshire since 2005. She is the author of two novels and a collection of short stories, published in India and the UK, and has won several prizes for her work. The East Indian is her American debut and will be published in May 2023 by Scribner USA. It will also be published by Scribe, UK and Harper Collins, India in June 2023. Brinda is also an academic with a specialization in the literature of the English Renaissance (Shakespeare and contemporaries) and has published several books and articles in that field. She is currently Professor of English at Keene State College, New Hampshire.
Rob Greene — Rob Greene is a New Hampshire resident who writes science fiction as the far easier to Google ‘R.W.W. Greene.’ His next book Earth Retrograde — the conclusion of The First Planets duology, which began in May 2022 with Mercury Rising — will be out October 2023 from Angry Robot Books. Greene keeps a website at RWWGreene.com and publishes a newsletter, Twenty-First Century Blues, via Substack.
Matthew Valentinas — Matthew Valentinas is an Entertainment Lawyer, Literary Manager, Affiliated Agent, and Producer. He received his BFA in film and television production from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and earned his JD from Suffolk University Law School. Matthew is the literary manager for numerous authors and screenwriters under his Mom’s Basement Management banner handling long term career strategy for clients. Managing tasks include providing submission services, screenplay and manuscript coverage, and advising on book proposal creation. Matthew also serves as an Executive Producer on numerous film and television and digital media productions through Mom’s Basement Media Inc. which packages and produces projects based on rights acquired or represented by Matthew. As a lawyer with Sennott Williams & Rogers, Matthew advises an array of clients covering all transactional entertainment matters including authors, screenwriters, directors, producers, production companies, publishers, life-story rights, estate rights, comedians, broadcasters, actors, podcasters, and radio and television personalities. He has held business affairs positions for a major studio, an international sales agency, and two independent film and television distributors.
