New Voices Alumni Interview Series: John Doble
As a part of the New Voices Interview Series, we asked our New Voices alumni to share about their writing process, their experience with mentorship, and what inspires them. Today’s interview is with New Voices Fellowship alum, John Doble.
Humanitas: What are you working on right now?
John Doble: Two screenplays (almost finished), a novella (a Harry Potter-esque dystopian fantasy, in the home stretch), and a play (just getting started).
H: If you could have dinner with any writer, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
JD: Alive: Aaron Sorkin, his dialogue is superior, and his stories so humane. Dead: Tolstoy, the greatest writer ever, or at least this side of Dostoevsky.
H: What kind of characters do you love to write and why?
JD: Appealing but flawed characters facing a choice, challenge,or predicament. As a man it’s perhaps paradoxical that my strongest, most interesting characters are almost always women.
H: Which writer working today inspires you?
JD: So many. Besides Aaron Sorkin, Ava DuVernay, Dennis Lehane, Spike Lee, Neil LaBute, David Mamet, John Patrick Shanley, Theresa Rebeck, Martin McDonagh, David Hare. I could go on and on.
H: How does your identity shape your writing?
JD: My identity does not shape my writing nearly as much as my imagination, philosophy, or life experience. My work is generally not autobiographical.
H: If you could go back in time to when you wrote your first script and give younger you a piece of advice, what would it be and why?
JD: Polish, polish, polish. My work is never finished. Whenever I see my plays that were produced or read my published short stories, I always want to tinker. I always think I can improve them.
John Doble is the author of the screenplays The Amen Sisterhood (Humanitas New Voices Fellowship recipient), The Rommel Gambit, and The Story of Zachary and Josephine; the plays A Serious Person (Winner, Arts & Letters Drama Prize, Georgia College and Belper Prize, Belper, UK), Tatyana and the Cable Man (Best Play, Midtown Short Play Festival, NYC); Coffee House, Greenwich Village (Neil LaBute Festival, St. Louis and 59E59 Theatre Off-Broadway, NYC), Twilight Time (LaBute Festival, St. Louis), ESP (Off-Broadway, Urban Stages) and To Protect the Poets, Reunion Run, and The Mayor Who Would Be Sondheim (all in FringeNYC). His short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines and a collection, Lefty and Other Stories (Clemson University). He has a BA and an MA from the University of Delaware and is a member of The Dramatists Guild and Playwrights’ Center. He lives in NYC with his wife Elizabeth and their dog Scout. Visit John at www.JohnDoble.com.
Are you an emerging, unrepresented writer? You can apply for the New Voices Fellowship right now by visiting our Coverfly portal, but our deadline is closing in. We won’t be able to accept applications after Saturday, April 30, 2022.
New Voices is a four-month mentorship program for emerging television and screenwriters. The program is committed to identifying and empowering five writers each year who are currently at work on a 30- or 60-minute pilot or feature film screenplay that upholds the mission of Humanitas.
Learn more about the Humanitas New Voices Fellowship by visiting this webpage.