The Palm Desert Low Residency MFA program at UC Riverside has been selected as a partner of the 2026-27 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, an international talent development program led by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that supports non-professional screenwriters.
Faculty members of the MFA program will evaluate feature film scripts submitted by recent MFA alumni and current students beginning this July, before selecting two writers for further consideration for a yearlong Nicholl fellowship. The $35,000 fellowships will be awarded in spring of 2027.
“The Nicholl is the premier screenwriting fellowship in the world,” MFA program director Tod Goldberg said. “To be selected as a partner is a huge honor for our MFA. I believe it speaks to the long-term success of our alumni in the industry, but also our history of opening doors to opportunity. Since our launch, the goal of this program has been the same: to help our students become professional writers. This partnership with the academy’s Nicholl Fellowships gives our community yet another amazing opportunity to succeed. I’m excited for our screenwriters and delighted to be a partner.”
The MFA program is one of 58 Nicholl partners that include global universities, screenwriting labs, film festivals, and filmmaker programs. Each partner will vet screenplays and make recommendations to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose members will read and evaluate them to determine 10 finalists. Academy members who serve on the Nicholl Committee will then select as many as five fellowship recipients from the group of finalists.
The fellowship is named for Don Nicholl, a British-born writer and producer who worked on “All in the Family” and helped create “Three’s Company” and “The Jeffersons,” and his wife, Gladys “Gee” Nicholl, a British-born actress, dancer, and writer.
Fellows engage in a series of events and career development programs, including pitch workshops, media training, meet-and-greets, mentoring from academy members, and continued career support through the academy’s Gold Alumni Network Program. Fellows are expected to complete at least one original feature film screenplay during their fellowship year.
Founded in 2008, the Low Residency MFA is a two-year program offering graduate degrees in fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, and screenwriting with an emphasis in writing for publication and production.
(Header image: Richard Harbaugh/Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences via Getty Images)
