Success Story: Nancy Hendrickson
Nancy Hendrickson graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University with a BFA in drama and spent many years pursuing an acting career -- doing regional theater, off-off Broadway, commercials, voice-overs, soaps, and the lead in the horror film Mother's Day -- before turning to screenwriting in 1994. 
She joined the Scriptwriters Network in order to enter her first screenplay, The House Upon the Sand, in The Carl Sautter Memorial Scriptwriting Competition.
Getting to the semi-finals encouraged her to continue writing, and feedback from the SWN readers gave her much needed help in honing her craft. Her next script, On Top of the World, won the Carl Sautter.
That same script also won The Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, got to the finals of the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the semi-finals (top 100 out of 4000) of the Nicholl Fellowship and the semi-finals of the Chesterfield Writers Film Project.
But, Nancy claims, "It was the Carl Sautter competition that gave my career the biggest boost." Part of the prize was a list of companies who had agreed to read the winning script and that led directly to an option from Phase I Productions, a production company owned by Joe Wizan, former president of Paramount. Adrian Lester was attached to star, and Canadian director Peter Rowe was attached to direct.
Both The House Upon the Sand and On Top of the World won the Scriptwriters Network’s Hollywood Outreach Program and Nancy was able to make many good and lasting contacts in the business as a result.
Nancy has written over 50 promotional spots for The Disney Channel featuring talents such as Harry Anderson, Howie Mandel, Jane Seymour, Markie Post and Alan Thicke.
She has also written and directed three short films. Two are in post-production. The first just finished playing the festival circuit, where it was nominated for Best in Category at the Damah Film Festival and won an award for Best Short at the Moondance Film Festival.
Nancy's spec script, Intimate Acts, was a finalist in the Sundance Writers Lab and Alpha Babe, co-written with Paula Brancato took 4th place in the Women in Film and Video Competition. Another feature script, In Defense of Carol Jean, is currently in pre-production with double-Emmy winner Martha Byrne producing and attached to star.
Nancy also recently finished adapting the biography of Dr. Irene Kassorla, the psychiatrist Merv Griffin dubbed “shrink to the stars.” That script, The Thirty-first Day, was commissioned by producers Randy Greenberg (former Head of Marketing and Distribution for Universal) and Jackie Kassorla (Emmy-winning TV producer).
In addition to writing screenplays, Nancy teaches screenwriting at Los Angeles Film School and is a regular contributor to Creative Screenwriting magazine.