Nickelodeon Reveals Its 2025 Emerging Writer And Artist Program Participants

Nickelodeon has announced seven artists and writers who will participate in its 25th annual writing program and 14th artist program.

The netework launched its incubator initiative for writers in 2000 and its artist program in 2011. The Nickelodeon artist program is a six-month, full-time, paid talent program for candidates hoping to gain experience in animation pre-production fields. Focused on mentorship, each artist is placed on a host production team where, where they will work closely with a senior artist mentor in addition to a peer mentor who has completed the same program.

The studio’s writer program is also a full-time, paid, yearlong initiative and is aimed at television comedy writers, offering experiences in live-action and animation writers’ rooms. The curriculum includes networking, executive mentorship, and tailored workshops hosted by program alumni. The group will also shadow Nickelodeon’s working writers’ rooms and gain hands-on experience while strengthening their improv and sketch comedy skills. All of the participants will work from Nickelodeon’s animation studio in Burbank.

Jean Margaret Smith, Nickelodeon’s senior vice president of public affairs, issued a congratulatory statement:

“Nickelodeon is thrilled to welcome this year’s talented artists and storytellers to the writing and artist programs, which continue to cultivate incredible voices… Both [programs] further develop a pipeline of unique perspectives and content in the entertainment industry, a true must.”

This year’s writer participants are Disha Manocha, a comedy writer from Mumbai and graduate of Chapman University; Marcus Perkins Bejarano, a Bolivian-American former attorney from Texas, and graduate of New York University’s Musical Theatre Writing program; and Teddy Sevilla, a Filipino-Irish-Italian-American who hails from a background in stand-up comedy and writing for Clickhole and The Onion, and also has a successful Tiktok account.

Artist program participants are:

• Wes Smith, who studied animation at Savannah College of Art and Design and computer animation at New York’s School of Visual Arts, who joins Nickelodeon’s storyboard path.
• Lisa Bird, a Japanese-American graduate of Brigham Young University’s animation program, joins the cg generalist path.
• Lauren Bird, a designer and illustrator from interior Alaska, studied at the Detroit College for Creative Studies and now joins the visual development path.
• Anthony Hernandez, a Mexican-American artist from Palmdale, California, who joins the storyboard path.

Nickelodeon cites previous artist incubator alumni who have gone on to successful industry careers:

Najja Porter (Emmy nominated writer and storyboard artist, Craig of the Creek), Keiko Murayama (Annie Award-winning character designer, Inside Out 2 and Carmen Sandiego), Sarah Jaques (art director, Santiago of the Seas), Samantha Kalis (creative director of visual development, Disney TV Animation), Li Cree Hurt (storyboard artist, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man), Emily Monjaraz (background designer, The Loud House), and Bikram Singh (storyboard revisionist, SpongeBob SquarePants).

And writer program alumni:

Jessica Gao (executive producer, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law), Travis Braun (executive producer & creator, Pupstruction and T.O.T.S.), Jeff Trammell (executive producer, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man), Jonathan Butler and Gabe Garza (co-creators, Bella and the Bulldogs), Kevin Arrieta (co-executive producer, Carol & the End of the World), and May Chan (executive producer, Surfside Girls).