John August

He hosts the popular screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes with Craig Mazin, maintains an eponymous screenwriting blog and develops screenwriter-targeted software through his company, Quote-Unquote Apps. August is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, voting in the Writers branch. In 2016, he was awarded the WGAw's Valentine Davies Award for his dignified contributions to the entertainment industry and the community-at-large, and has been nominated for a BAFTA and a Grammy. August was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado. His birth name was John Tilton Meise, a surname he found was difficult to pronounce and wished to change; he eventually settled on August, his father's middle name. He earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa; while there, he participated in a summer film program at Stanford and decided to pursue screenwriting. He went on to earn an MFA in film from The Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California.