RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2023
Peter Forbes
Peter Forbes is a Film MFA Honors graduate from Columbia University. In spring 2022, he won the Ezra Litwak Award, Columbia’s most prestigious screenwriting prize, for his feature script Dream Kingdom. He also won the fall 2022 Big Apple Film Festival best TV horror/thriller award for his sci-fi thriller pilot script, Deep River, and placed as a 2022 Slamdance quarterfinalist and Austin Film Festival second rounder for his neo-Western crime drama pilot, Artesia. A neurodivergent writer, Peter was part of the 2022 cohort of the 1IN4 Coalition’s Disabled Writers Program. While attending Columbia, Peter also taught a semester-length screenwriting class to Columbia undergraduates.
Peter’s directing work has also earned accolades. His MFA thesis short, The Wood Thrush, won an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation production grant. It was selected for the 2023 New York International Children’s Film Festival and won Best Director at the 2022 Grand Junction Film Festival.
Peter grew up homeschooled in Colorado’s remote high desert, and its red mesas and jagged flatirons left an indelible mark on his imagination. A childhood filled with The Lord Of The Rings, Narnia, and Studio Ghibli inspires his own work—stories rich with worldbuilding, empathetic characters, and moving themes of hope and connection.
As a kid, he wrote fiction under his blankets by flashlight when he was “sleeping.” This marked the beginning of his creative writing, and he eventually sought a second MFA at Hamline University in Writing for Children and Young Adults. He graduated from Hamline in January 2022 and was honored to win the Anne Tews Schwab Award for Excellence in Critical Writing.
More importantly, he’s married to a wonderful woman and is stepdad to two kids and two orange cats.
Learn More
After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Virtual Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2023 Entertainment Lab taking place August 14 – September 21, 2023. This 6-week Lab aims to develop and elevate the talent pipeline of disabled entertainment professionals working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming, while connecting them with industry professionals and creatives. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, other disabilities, and multiple disabilities ranging in age from the 20s through the 50s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award and is made possible with support from The Harnisch Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Charitable Trust.
