The Diversity Department of the Writers Guild of America has announced the honorees for the 2013 WGAW Writer Access Project, a program designed to address the issue of under-representation of diverse writers on television writing staffs, by identifying excellent, diverse writers with television experience, and to provide a resource for accessing their work to showrunners, industry executives, agents and managers.

Qualified WGAW members were invited to submit their work in one of five diversity categories: minority writers; writers with disabilities; women writers; writers age 55 and over; and gay and lesbian writers.

Writers were invited to submit either an original pilot or a spec script from a current television show.

The scripts were read and scored on a blind submission basis by WGAW members with extensive television writing experience, including current and former showrunners and writer/producers.

The project was launched by the WGAW’s Diversity Department in early 2009.

Congrats to Lena Waithe (seated, 3rd from the left in above photo) and Dawn Comer Jefferson (standing, 3rd from the left) on their recognition!

Lena began her writing career on Nickelodeon’s How To Rock where she wrote two episodes. Her latest pilot is about three black girls trying to get their lives together.

Dawn Comer Jefferson started as a Walt Disney Writers Program Fellow. Soon after, she received an Emmy nomination for the animated special, Our Friend, Martin, starring James Earl Jones and John Travolta for Fox/DIC Entertainment. Dawn spent several seasons writing on Judging Amy, served as writer/consulting producer on TeenNick’s South of Nowhere, and developed a pilot for Tartikoff/Ebersol at NBC Universal Studios. Dawn was previously a Writers Access Project Honoree in 2011.