Loni Steele Sosthand AB '97 is currently a Co-Producer going into her third season on THE SIMPSONS. Prior to that, she was partnered with Jim Hope as Consulting Producers on Nickelodeon's COUSINS FOR LIFE. Loni has written for various multi-cam family comedies including LAB RATS, DOG WITH A BLOG and BEST FRIENDS WHENEVER. Loni also co-created, co-wrote, and co-produced KATRINA, a half-hour dramedy pilot for The-N (Teen Nick), executive produced by Warrington Hudlin.  Loni is a graduate of Harvard University where she wrote a novel for her honors thesis.  In addition to her writing life, Loni lives in Santa Clarita with her husband, a Stunt Coordinator/Stuntman, her ten-year-old triplets, two dogs, and one very abused minivan. 

Q: Congratulations on your recent trailblazing episode of The Simpsons, the first-ever episode featuring the use of ASL and the show’s first-ever deaf voice actors. How did you end up as a writer and executive story editor on the show?

Well… it was the summer of 2020, and our family, like most, was in the thick of pandemic related stress. My husband is a Stunt Coordinator and performer so his work is dependent on productions happening, and they were barely coming back.   The few that were would require him leaving us for months of quarantine apart.  Our triplets were going into the third grade and we were scrambling to figure out how to best assist their “at-home” schooling. Though I’d written on several multi-cam comedies over the years and built up my writer’s room experiences, I wasn’t staffed at the time.  With three kids, a mortgage, grocery bills and so much uncertainty, I began doing some on-line writing tutoring and started a graduate program in Psychology, finally initiating the Plan B career.  I hadn’t given up on my dreams, but I couldn’t just sit around and count on some out of the blue miracle like Al Jean and Matt Selman, the showrunners of The Simpsons reading my material (submitted by my agent), offering me a meeting and hiring me.  Then, in a merciful twist of fate, that is what happened.  

Q: What inspired the storyline of your episode “The Sound of Bleeding Gums”?  

When I became a The Simpsons' writer, I really wanted to tell a Bleeding Gums Murphy story because I loved that character so much from when I was a kid.  I’ve long been a jazz fan, and those early episodes with Bleeding Gums had such a delightfully bluesy sense of humor.  Of course, in pitching any idea for the thirty third season of The Simpsons there is a great challenge to do something new, while still honoring the legacy of the show.  So, in brainstorming ways to explore Bleeding Gums’ character with a fresh take, we talked about how Lisa might have missed out on some aspects of his life and not known her hero as well as she thought. That’s where the idea of her meeting his son, Monk Murphy, who happens to be deaf, came into play.  My brother Eli was born profoundly deaf, and so it excited me to get the opportunity to pay witness to some aspects of the deaf experience in the Simpsons world, something that hadn’t been done before.  My brother got a cochlear implant in his twenties and I was with him when he heard sound for the first time.  There were many moments surrounding that miraculous change in his life that were full of bluesy humor that fit into the tone of those early Bleeding Gums episodes. 

Because of my brother I was sensitive to how we represented this deaf character and knew we’d need a deaf voice actor for the role.  When we were still in the outlining phase of the episode, I told Al Jean about John Autry II who I had in mind to play the role of Monk Murphy.  I’d work[ed] with John over a decade earlier on a pilot I did for Nickelodeon when John was still a teenager.   John uses total communication, meaning he both signs and uses oral speech to communicate and he also got a cochlear implant in his twenties.  There is a moment in the episode when Monk gets his cochlear activated and hears the sound of his father’s music for the first time, and I think that John’s performance which draws on his personal experience, combined with the beautiful animation really makes it very poignant. 

Q: What was it like to work with your brother, Eli, who voiced one of the characters on this project? 

My brother and I have collaborated before on different projects and it’s an easy fit because we know each other so well.  I showed him early drafts of the script, mostly to get his approval for elements of the story that borrowed from his life.  There is a segment of the episode that shows how Bleeding Gums discovered that his son was born deaf that is directly drawn from how my parents discovered that Eli was born deaf.   As a baby he was napping when my father dropped pots and pans near his crib and when he didn’t wake up from the clatter they knew he couldn’t hear.  We animated [this] in the scene where Bleeding Gums comes home late at night with a bandmate who drops his cymbals in a loud clatter that doesn’t wake the baby.  After the show aired my brother expressed how moved he was by seeing that moment represented on The Simpsons. So, when it turned out we needed one more deaf voice in the episode it made sense to cast him.  He has, of course, bugged me ever since about when his character will return and perhaps carry an episode [arc]. 

Q: You talked a bit about the challenge of animating ASL for characters who only had four fingers– were there any other unexpected challenges or surprises that cropped up while you were creating this episode? 

Well, the challenges of drawing the ASL were mostly taken on by our wonderful animators. I do believe one of the animators had some knowledge of ASL, but we also sent clips of their animatics to several ASL experts.  I turned to two family friends: Michelle McAuliffe, a childhood friend who is a professor at Gallaudet, and Cindy Herbst, who is a professor of ASL and an interpreter at Cal State Northridge.   Both these women were generous with their time and happy to help as we sent drafts of the animation to them and made slight adjustments.  After the show aired I visited one of Michelle’s classes at Gallaudet (via Zoom) and it was a real honor to get to meet with her students and get their feedback.  I was deeply touched by what it meant to them to see ASL on The Simpsons, and I was also happy to hear their pitches for how to do it even better and more often. 

Q: How is writing for animation different from writing for human actors, if at all? Do you like one more than the other? Do you find writing for animation to be easier because cartoon characters have more flexibility in terms of what they can be made to do?

I just love how patient the process is in animation. It takes about a year from the original pitch to the airing of an episode, so there are a lot of opportunities to make improvements.  I love the collaborative discussions with the animators that come after the table read.  For example, for this episode I was able to send them many images for how to draw Monk’s hearing aids and later his cochlear implant.  And the moment when Monk gets his implant turned on for the first time is illustrated to show the musical notes coming off of his father’s album, entering the cochlear implant, and then lighting up Monk’s brain with memories and images of his father.  This is a beautiful moment conveyed through animation, that could only be drawn.

Q: In what ways did your time at Harvard influence the path you have taken since graduating?

I went to Harvard knowing that I wanted to be a writer, but I had no idea I’d write for television.  At the time my ambition was to be a novelist. I took as many creative writing classes as I could and got to study with Jamaica Kincaid and Jill McCorkle.   I was able to do a novel as my creative writing thesis and I went on to graduate school in the MFA program at UC Irvine.  As I struggled to finish the novel, I began writing scripts on the side just for fun.  Eventually the form of writing that I had the most fun doing took over the form I was most stressed about.    I participated in writing workshops at Harvardwood that really helped me get my early spec scripts in shape.  Those workshops were great opportunities to collaborate with other writers, many of whom have since gone on to have successful writing careers. 

Q: What advice do you have for young aspiring comedy writers? 

Get into or start a supportive writing group and use it to keep creating and revising your specs to get them in better and better shape. Rewriting is the main part of the job and collaborating is the other.  So, getting to workshop your work in a group setting is really good preparation for the writer’s room.    

Q: How do you like to spend your time when you’re not working?

When I’m not working it’s all about family time.  Our triplets are now ten years old and we are just trying to savor this particularly fun time in childhood.   

Loni's Simpson's episode of The Simpsons, "The Sound of Bleeding Gums", was released on April 10, 2022 and is available to stream now.

Jonathan Sethna Harvardwood LGBTQ+ Fellowship

Applications are now closed

Harvardwood is excited to announce the inaugural Jonathan Sethna Harvardwood LGBTQ+ Fellowship for projects that elevate LGBTQ+ characters, themes, and stories by creatives and screenwriters who are Harvard University alumni.

The purpose of the Fellowship is to polish, develop, elevate, and amplify projects for the screen with LGBTQIA+ characters, themes, and stories. The gift, generously donated by Jonathan Sethna (HGSE ’03), will support at least two projects. The minimum amount of grant funding is $5,000. In addition to grant funds, Fellows will receive one-on-one guidance and mentorship from Harvard Alumni that want to empower artists to make the world a better place through their stories. 

The inaugural Sethna Harvardwood Fellow(s) will be announced by August 31, 2023, and the Fellowship will run from September 1, 2023 through August 31, 2024. Applicants may be at any stage of their career, and their chosen project must be a project for the screen (fiction or nonfiction, film or television). However, applicants can hold any relation to the work: writer, director, producer, etc. 

Each Fellow will receive additional guidance and assistance through Harvardwood via programs, resources, and access to the wider Harvardwood network during their fellowship year.

“Harvardwood is so excited to have the opportunity to cultivate and promote art and artists’ work featuring LGBTQ+ stories, thanks to the generosity of donor Jonathan Sethna,” said Harvardwood Director Laura Frustaci (AB ‘21). “Growing up with two moms, there was a dearth of onscreen representation when it came to families that looked like mine. I hope that this fellowship and others like it can rectify that for younger generations. Now more than ever, we rely on art to heal and raise awareness about identities and communities that are frequently overlooked and even persecuted. We believe that this fellowship will bring to light impactful stories centered around talented and emerging LGBTQ+ voices and experiences.”

The Fellowship selection committee is comprised of Harvardwood board members, other industry professionals, and/or Harvard University staff with expertise in various artistic disciplines.

2023-24 Eligibility

To apply, individuals may identify as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community or ally to the community, as long as the proposed project meets the fellowship goals of uplifting LGBTQIA+ characters/themes/stories. Applicants must be Harvard University alumni in order to complete the application, which must include a resume and an artist statement with a brief description of the envisioned project to be completed or substantially developed during the term of the Fellowship. Applicants should also include a work sample or portfolio.

The finalist round may include a virtual interview. Individuals who have previously been beneficiaries of Harvardwood grants or scholarships or have participated in Harvardwood programs are eligible as long as they meet the other terms of eligibility.

Applications will be accepted starting on July 1, 2023 and will be due July 31, 2023, with the recipient(s) announced in August 2023. 

Applications are now closed

Harvardwood has announced its latest set of Writers Competition winners, also naming its Most Staffable TV Writer for 2023.

The official arts, media, and entertainment alumni organization for Harvard University, Harvardwood looks to spotlight talented up-and-coming writers from diverse backgrounds and to connect them with mentors, as well as producers, agencies, and management companies.

Writer-producers participating in this year’s program as mentors include Neal Baer (ER, Designated Survivor), Emily Halpern (80 for Brady, Booksmart), and Jeff Schaffer (Dave, Curb Your Enthusiasm).

Capes Coaching's signature “THE CREATIVE PATH” career course is launching online and Harvardwood Full members get $250 off!

The Creative Path course guides you through 12-weeks of deep exploration as you unlock your personalized system for turning big life and career goals into small, consistent, actionable steps, culminating in a one-year career plan you can count on. You walk away with the tools you need to stay focused, strategies for overcoming obstacles, and support from a community of motivated creative professionals and trained coaches... empowering you to manage your career with clarity and purpose.

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Exclusive discount code for Full Harvardwood members. 
Use Code MYPATH for $250 off 

Harvardwood has announced its latest set of Writers Competition winners, also naming its Most Staffable TV Writers for 2022.

The official arts, media and entertainment alumni organization for Harvard University, Harvardwood looks to spotlight talented up-and-coming writers from diverse backgrounds and to connect them with mentors, as well as producers, agencies and management companies.

Writer-producers participating in this year’s program as mentors include Carlton Cuse (Lost), Mark Goffman (The Umbrella Academy), Teresa Hsiao (Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens), Colleen McGuinness (Life & Beth) and Jeff Melvoin (Killing Eve).

Looking for a part-time hustle with growth potential? A day job with exciting ties to entertainment and the arts? A way to give back to Harvardwood? We need you!

Harvardwood is growing and expanding its activities, and we are looking for a handful of part-time associates to help administer programs and manage the daily activities of the organization. We are putting out the word to our community for creative, entrepreneurial individuals to join us.

Associates will engage in a range of activities, possibly including programs/events; administrative; tech (websites, databases, etc); membership, communications, and marketing; and financials and budgeting. Specific responsibilities will be mutually determined based on area(s) of interest and expertise. Associates will work closely with current staff, leadership team, Board of Directors, members and external stakeholders. Location is remote, with occasional in-person work possible. Pay is hourly and varies based on role, responsibilities and experience. 

If this may be right for you, please send resume and indication of your areas of interest to [email protected]!

Marshall Lewy AB '99 is the current Chief Content Officer at Wondery, the largest independent podcast publisher and home to Dr. Death, Business Wars, The Shrink Next Door, American History Tellers, Dirty John and many more. Before his time at Wondery, Marshall wrote and directed the feature films Blue State and California Solo and was nominated for an Emmy for producing HBO’s TV series Project Greenlight featuring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.


Q: Your show WeCrashed, similarly to that of Hulu’s The Dropout and Showtime’s Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, focuses on a story of failed tech startup founders. Audiences seem ravenous for more of these true-life miniseries dramas. What do you think it is about these types of narratives that are so gripping to watchers? How much artistic liberty do you feel can be taken when adapting these stories to the screen? 

A: We've told a lot of these sorts of true stories about bad actors in business across our various Wondery podcasts, from many seasons of Business Wars to our investigative miniseries like WeCrashed and The Vaping Fix, which was a series about the rise and fall of JUUL. They always have such fascinating characters, with stories of hubris and usually the perversion of the "American Dream." I think people respond because they tap into some deep vein that we all relate to, and they also are very of-the-moment for some of the challenges we're all going through collectively right now. I think we’re living through a period in time where lots of us are having trouble comprehending the larger realities happening all around us (e.g. pandemic, land war in Europe, domestic political upheaval, etc.), so we looking for an anchor of “truth” even in our fiction. And when it comes time to take these true podcasts and turn them into TV series, we recognize that the TV show is now a fictionalized drama, not an investigative series –  we want to support the vision of the writers, showrunners, actors, and directors who are working to bring the series to life. We share as much of our research and reporting as we can, but we also want them to make it their own, and hit the themes and truths they want to explore. 

Q: Both WeCrashed and Joe vs. Carole are miniseries which originally played out as podcasts. How do you bring a podcast to life onscreen? How do you decide which podcasts could make compelling visual retellings in TV format?

A: We never make a podcast for the sole reason of turning it into a TV series – we are attracted to these stories because they’re fascinating stories and we think podcast listeners will respond. But I think we've found success in bringing them to TV because the narrative, character-driven way we create our podcasts attracts visual storytellers. And in many cases, we’ve had actors want to play certain roles just from listening to our podcast, which was the case with Kate McKinnon signing on to play Carole Baskin (which was six months before the Tiger King documentary ever aired on Netflix!), as well as Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell for our podcast The Shrink Next Door.

Q: You said in an article for The Hollywood Reporter that “listeners are growing more accustomed to podcasts that push the limits of how stories are told” in light of Wondery’s groundbreaking decision to release several podcast series in Dolby Atmos. This makes Wondery the first podcast streaming service in the US to deliver podcasts in the immersive sound format. What do you find unique about the further possibilities of the podcast format?

A: I started as an avid listener of podcasts before I got into making them. I loved the purity of the writing and the production – compared with television and film, there are a lot fewer moving parts, production-wise. I also loved the intimacy and authenticity of them. Even though podcasts have been around in some form for almost twenty years now (and radio long before that), it’s still so early in the evolution of on-demand spoken-word audio and audio storytelling. Spatial audio, smart speakers, interactivity ... there’s still a lot more to explore.

Q: Early on in your career, you accrued credits both as a writer and director, but for years your primary focus has been producing, especially podcasts. What led you to where you are now? What influenced you to pivot into producing, or was that always the goal? 

A: My dream from the time I was a kid was always to be a film director. I went to film school at Columbia after Harvard and got an MFA in Film Directing. When I started film school, there wasn’t Youtube, podcasts, video streaming, etc. So my dream was to make thoughtful films that played in movie theaters on the big screen! But in the years after film school, I kept finding myself attracted to all the other ways that were proliferating around visual storytelling. So about a year after I wrote and directed a film that premiered at Sundance called California Solo, I started working more on the producing side, working with creators across all different types of media: film and TV, but also digital short-form, audio, book publishing, etc. I found it moved so much faster and allowed me to exercise so many different muscles than working on just one or two projects at a time. After that, it would be hard to go back to making just one movie at a time. At Wondery, I directed our first scripted audio drama Blood Ties, which just launched its third season, and that's been a great way to get back to directing scripted content.

Q: In what ways did your time at Harvard influence the path you have taken since graduating?

A: Well, I spent many, many nights during college watching old and obscure movies at the Harvard Film Archive and the Brattle Theater, and I took a bunch of film courses. I also created a “sitcom” at HRTV, the Harvard television station that had its headquarters in the basement of Pforzheimer House in the Quad. They had all kinds of video cameras and rudimentary digital editing systems back when you could only hold about 30 minutes of video footage on a single hard drive. We never got any audience because none of the houses at Harvard actually were wired for cable, but it was still a good way to practice making things.

Q: In a 2020 interview, you mentioned that you hadn’t noticed an increase in podcast listeners due to the pandemic at that time. Now, over two years later, do you find that statement remains accurate, or has there been a tangible COVID impact on the podcast industry in the wake of months-long quarantines? How about in terms of the creation, rather than the consumption, of podcasts? 

A: It's hard to delineate what growth over the past few years came from the podcast boom that had already begun pre-pandemic, with what got accelerated by the pandemic. We did see a pretty steep dropoff in podcast listening during the first few months of the pandemic, but listening bounced back quickly as people found new times of day and activities to do while listening to podcasts. For example, maybe they started listening to podcasts while walking the dog instead of driving to work. So the pandemic has been a time of listener growth, and I think of podcast creation, too. One of the best examples of a very successful podcast that was born out of the pandemic is Smartless, which we now distribute and have a major partnership with at Wondery and Amazon Music. We launched a show in March 2020 called Even the Rich which seemed very ill-timed when it first launched and got off to an extremely slow start, but it has since become one of our most successful ongoing shows. 

Q: What do you think is most essential to crafting a successful podcast? 

A: A passionate connection to the subject matter, access to something or someone (or a point of view) that no one else in the world has, and a good microphone.

Q: Do you have a favorite podcast (or podcasts) you’d always recommend? What about TV shows, movies, or other go-to favorite pieces of media?

A: I’ll stick with podcasts only so the answer doesn’t go too long, but you can’t go wrong starting with some of the greatest episodes and stories from This American Life.

Q: How do you like to spend your time when you’re not working?

A: I used to love running and cooking, but now I have 4 kids ages 10 and under, so it’s mostly work and family these days.

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Wondery's extensive catalog of podcasts can be found on their website at wondery.com. The TV show WeCrashed is available to watch on Apple TV+, and Joe vs. Carole is available to watch on Peacock.

Seeking Director / DP for Alumni Testimonials
Cambridge, MA
June 3-5

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court received the opening brief from SFFA in their lawsuit against Harvard’s race conscious admissions policies, challenging forty years of legal precedent giving higher education institutions the ability to create diverse communities that enrich those institutions and society. As alumni, we all contributed to the broad diversity that is Harvard and were able to learn so much more during our time at Harvard because of the rich, vibrant communities Harvard's admissions policies helped facilitate. Now, we want to help Harvard by creating a viral social media campaign about the importance of diversity.

Volunteer leaders from Harvardwood and the HAA are seeking a director, cinematographer or other film/video-savvy alum who will be in Cambridge between June 3-5 during reunions to record a series of 10-minute alumni testimonials supporting diversity in college admissions. The estimated time commitment for filming is 3 hours on one of those days, and an interior space on campus will be provided along with administrative support. Minimal tech requirements (an iPhone 11+ or similar should suffice). This is a pro bono project.

If interested, please contact: [email protected]