TRIBE Mentorship - Kristina Thomas (That's me!)

As I finish up my mentorship, I thought it would be great to share my experience. I’m super excited (pun intended) to be sharing for the past year I’ve been in @amyaniobi #TribeWritersProgram.

This is a year-long program and ongoing career network for intermediate indie writers (not yet staffed or recently staffed at the lower level) created by writer/producer Amy Aniobi. TRIBE focuses on bridging the gap between writing independently and writing as a career.

Throughout 2021 we talked with fellow working writers in the industry, learned how to navigate the industry, and how to take our career into our own hands. Check me out on the website: besuperspecial.com/tribe

It was the first time I was able to be vulnerable and have someone as supportive as a fellow black female writer and now director.

Here’s an excerpt from the article about TRIBE.

“Despite that fact that Aniobi was literally at home working on that web series (the “Awkward Black Girl” writers room met weekly in her living room), it was the feeling of being around people that fully understood her that she relished most. “I was like, ‘This is what I want — getting to make jokes with people who look like me,’ she recalls. “It’s just a general energy of comfort when you know you’re with people who truly see you that just can’t be replicated or faked.”

It was the same feeling she got on “Insecure,” where Rae, Prentice Penny (who she’d first worked with on “Happy Endings”), Melina Matsoukas and Yvonne Orji (who she “knew from being Nigerian and in comedy in L.A.”), were some of the folks she’d met along her career journey, bonding over common experiences.

“That’s the feeling that I want to give to other writers — knowing that across the room, or across the Zoom, someone has your back,” she explains. “That’s so pivotal as an artist, and the only way I learned anything about writing professionally was through people who mentored me.”

Aniobi’s answer to it all was to create Tribe, a networking and mentorship program primarily populated by writers of color. The creator had already been mentoring people on an ad hoc basis (“Whoever slid in my DM’s, I’d be like ‘Let’s chat,’” she says), but creating a formal program was a way to “introduce all these writers who now know me to each other, because the only way I’ve been allowed to rise is by having a tribe.”

Since January, Aniobi has assembled more than 30 writers from all experience levels and invited friends like “Pose” co-creator Steven Canals to share their expertise. Tribe’s virtual meetings and workshops focus on learning both “hard skills,” like how to write an outline or take a general meeting, and “soft skills,” including tips on keeping your mental health in check or navigating narcissists in the workplace. “Being able to lean on other writers and help bridge those gaps for them has felt really healing,” she says.

Building this virtual network has also done wonders to dispel that pesky myth that Hollywood is filled with terrible people who’d rather compete than create opportunities.

“There is this changing energy, where it used to be, ‘It’s you or it’s me,’ because there are so few spots for people who look like us. Now, it’s you and it’s me, or it’s none of us,” Aniobi says, adding that she’s heartened “knowing that [approach] isn’t just something that I believe in, and it isn’t just something that Issa believes in, it’s something that a lot of people in this industry are now starting to understand, believe and practice.”

The changing tone around inclusion also gives Aniobi confidence to expand Tribe. The creative is working to build a full-time infrastructure around the program in order to support more up and coming writers. Mum’s the word on plans for now, but Aniobi says she’s really excited about “putting my money where my mouth is, and supporting people not just with talks and panels, but actually getting investment into the projects they want to create.””