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, Augusto Federico Amador.

Humanitas: What are you working on right now?

Augusto Federico Amador: Currently I am adapting my award-winning stage play Kissing Che to television, about the rise and fall of Cuba’s last famous drag queen during the LGBTQ persecution by the Fidel Castro regime. It’s a story that I think is unfortunately becoming more and more relevant in our country. I am also writing a new stage play.

H: What kind of characters do you love to write and why? 

AFA: I love to create characters that have hit rock bottom and are forced on the spot to make high stakes decisions in order to save themselves. Subverting the audience's expectations in storytelling is very compelling to me.

H: What are you watching right now? 

AFA: The new David Simon/George Pelecanos series, We Own This City. The way they weave all those complicated storylines and character arcs, while telling the story so seamlessly, is amazing.

H: How does your identity shape your writing? 

AFA: As a Latino writer, it's important to create Latino characters that are good hearted, but fallible. I often write about endearing “hot messes” who, by virtue of their faults, are entertaining and relatable not only as humans, but as fellow Americans.

H: What impact did the New Voices Fellowship have on your writing/career?

AFA: Well, first I should say that I was first awarded a Play LA playwriting fellowship through Humanitas. And then wanting to expand into television writing applied to the New Voices Fellowship which led to being repped by my terrific manager, Adam Peck, at Synchronicity.

Augusto Federico Amador is an award winning, nationally produced playwright and television writer.

He is repped by Adam Peck at Synchronicity Management and Abel Lezcano at Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano.

Are you an emerging, unrepresented writer? Join us this summer for Industry 101, a series of free online workshops inspired by components of the New Voices Fellowship. You can sign-up to learn more by clicking here.

Submissions for this year’s New Voices Fellowship closed on May 18, 2022, but next year’s program is slated to open for submissions in early 2023.

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.