Variety will partner with IFP for the first 10 Storytellers to Watch event, honoring breakout storytellers including podcasters, novelists, lyricists, playwrights, graphic novelists and brand storytellers. The event will also host a conversation with Patti Smith, who will receive the Impact in Storytelling honor.
The luncheon celebration will be held in New York City on Sept. 19, as part of IFP Week. The honorees are Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author, “Friday Black”; Zack Akers & Skip Bronkie, podcasters, “Limetown”; Matthew Baker, author, “Hybrid Creatures”; Angie Kim, author, “Miracle Creek”; Sylvia Zakhary & Sing J Lee, brand storytellers, MAMAG Studios; Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss, creators/playwrights, “Six”; Anna Priestland, podcaster, “Letters of Love in WW2”; Kristen Roupenian, author, “You Know You Want This”; Tenille Townes, singer/songwriter; and Tillie Walden, graphic novelist, “On a Sunbeam.”
The ten honorees will each have profiles in the Sept. 17 issue of Variety. This marks the latest in Variety‘s ten to watch series, which highlights emerging creatives.
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The luncheon will also include a panel discussion with film and television producer Christine Vachon, editor-in-chief of Audible Originals David Blum and IFP executive director Jeffrey Sharp.
“After more than two decades of spotlighting up-and-coming actors, directors, producers, comics and cinematographers, Variety is excited to announce our inaugural showcase of 10 Storytellers to Watch. It is an opportunity to highlight all of the ways that stories are told and all of the platforms where they are told in the year 2019,” said Steven Gaydos, Variety’s EVP content and executive editor. “Additionally, we are thrilled to honor Patti Smith with our Creative Impact in Storytelling Award. From her earliest beginnings in the New York City and Paris avant-garde arts scenes of the 1960s, throughout her illustrious career as one of America’s most daring and iconoclastic singer-songwriters, Patti Smith has established herself as a force for intimate, truthful, insightful storytelling.”
“At the heart of every story is a voice, and we are thrilled to partner with Variety to present the inaugural 10 Storytellers to Watch. At IFP we love providing a space to help incubate emerging talents and look forward to highlighting these rising artists and their creativity with this new platform,” Sharp. “We are especially honored to recognize Patti Smith with the Creative Impact in Storytelling, whose musical talents goes beyond the traditional realms of storytelling.”
