Northwest Screenwriters Guild - February Special Guests

Catherine Fordham is a New York-based writer, director, and producer originally from Nova Scotia. Drawn to the subliminal and otherworldly, her boundary-pushing work reflects a lifelong fascination with the driving forces of both our external and internal worlds, frequently using genre as a tool to explore deeper themes.

An actor since age eight, Catherine’s early days working in theatre, television, and film transformed into a passion for writing and directing. A collector of wild characters, her stories come from a childhood surrounded by hippies and spiritual explorers, her time working at a cowboy bar in the Rockies while living in a trailer park at a Buddhist Meditation center, years waitressing at a hole-in-the-wall celebrity hot spot in Greenwich Village, and a brief stint as a chicken farmer. read more…

CASCADIA’s Executive Director Cheryl Crooks is a professional photographer and writer who began her career as a journalist and arts critic in Phoenix. While working as an arts editor, she was selected as critic fellow of the O’Neill Theatre Institute, the youngest at the time to have been chosen. She later wrote for TIME Magazine for ten years and became the Los Angeles bureau medical reporter after covering the historic first artificial heart transplant. She also co-founded Independent Writers of Southern California, a professional association for self-employed writers, now in its 40th year of existence, and served two terms as its President. She co-founded CASCADIA and currently serves as its executive director. She coordinates CASCADIA’s annual festival as well as its ongoing programs and events to carry out the mission.