028: Kate Churukian vs. Alexis, the Television Writer

All of the hosts and interviewers you’ll hear from for the rest of this season are Chapman students who have completed the Podcasting class, which is just one of the topics offered through the Center for Creative and Cultural Industries course: 304-Creative and Cultural Industries in Practice. In class, we focus on the relationship between theory and practice. This means that after discussions focused on the importance of podcasts in modern media, we go out and create our own podcasts. Students who had no podcasting experience or technical ability were able to contribute all of the segments to the Chapman Catalyst podcast, with the goal being that they will take this ‘hands-on’ experience and carry it over to the launching of their very own series.

In the second episode of the second half of the fourth season, Kate Churukian flies all the way to Austin to interview Chapman alum and television writer Alexis Allen. Kate gets her to spill immediately, almost like they’ve been friends for quite some time. Throughout the course of the interview, Alexis discusses her route to becoming a television writer, and muses on all of her inspirations, from Aaron Sorkin to Big Little Lies. She also talks about transitioning from one type of writing to another, explaining how different it is to go from writing novels and prose to writing screenplays. Kate eventually drops the big question that every writer wants to hear the answer to: what do you do when staring at a blank screen.