Going into its third year, Roadmap Writing will host Black to the Future, a week-long celebration event of Black History Month and bringing awareness to diversity in the entertainment writing industry. Roadmap Writing is an education platform that can help "people looking for a guided path to professional success
Mara Brock Akil brings her unique vision of life and love to Netflix
February 24, 2021
Mara Brock Akil (Medill â92) still remembers the first time she made an audience laugh. As a freshman at Northwestern, she volunteered to help some friends in the Black sketch comedy group Out Da Box with a show. A member of the group encouraged her to write a sketch, and despite her initial protests that she was a journalist, not an entertainment person, she ended up writing a parody of Mike Tyson and Robin Givensâ then-recent marriage.
âThe first laugh was a high I will never forget,â Akil said. âPeople responding to my work in the places I imagined they would, it was the first hit of, maybe this is something new.â