CO-PRINCIPAL & PRODUCER
Leslie Kreiner Wilson co-founded AMI Films, a producer of many award-winning media projects. The shows from their edit bays have earned such honors as film festival prizes, top Billboard rankings, the Lumière Award, the Emmy, and many more. They have been theatrically released as well as broadcast on such diverse platforms/networks as Amazon, NBC, DIRECTV, PBS, Amazon, VH1, AXS, and Netflix. Her consulting work has ranged from mentoring student MFA projects to advising well known Hollywood directors such as Garry Marshall.
A tenured full professor, she teaches fiction, screenwriting, and film at Pepperdine University in Malibu where she also directs the MFA Program in Writing for Screen and Television; co-directed the Institute for Entertainment, Media, and Culture; as well as produced a documentary web series on the art of screenwriting. A scholar-activist, her research, writing, and publishing focus on women and leadership in early Hollywood. Recent essays have garnered best article awards from the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) as well as the Screenwriting Research Network (SRN).
She has served as a judge for Prize Americana, SRN, the Social Impact Media Awards (SIMA), the Sudreau Global Justice Institute, the Television Academy, as well as BEA, where she also serves as Vice Chair of the Writing Division and Chair of the Faculty Screenwriting Competition.
Executive Director, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of Press Americana at americanpopularculture.com, she believes in the power of pop culture studies and creative writing to make a positive global impact.
Her current projects include the book Madame Movie Mogul: Women and Leadership in Early Hollywood as well as fiction and adaptations for popular series. Whether working in media, publishing, or academia, she remains steadfastly committed to empowering women and girls.
She holds a Ph.D. in American Literature and Film Studies from Claremont Graduate University while also completing certificates from Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and UCLA.
