UGA Alum Steve Yockey (A.B. Theatre, ‘01) is a television producer, screenwriter, showrunner and playwright. He develops and produces original content for Warner Brothers. He is the executive producer/writer of the Emmy-nominated series The Flight Attendant and Dead Boy Detectives, co-producer/writer of Supernatural, wrote for Doom Patrol, Scream, Awkward, and is a prolific playwright. In 2021, Yockey received two Primetime Emmy nominations for the “Outstanding Comedy Series” and “Outstanding Writing” for his work on The Flight Attendant. He is currently writing the latest sequel in the Star Trek franchise for Paramount.
Yockey visited the Studio Production Learning Center on October 4th, Friday, to tour the stages and host a QnA session for MFA Film students. Hosted by Mary Goodwin, the Athena Production Coordinator, the QnA session covered the broad strokes of Yockey’s career. Starting from a striving playwright in New York to selling his first television screenplay pilot, he walked through his journey of becoming a successful writer in Hollywood.
Once the floor was open for questions from students, the MFA Film students asked Yockey for his inspiration and his writing process. Yockey shared fun and meaningful stories along with great advice like “lean into what makes your writing unique” instead of forcing yourself to cater to mainstream. The students were able to learn from his experience on importance of hooks in pitches, creating a story engine that drives a TV show, and power of saying “No.”