An Evening with Felicia D. Henderson

Felicia D. Henderson will be interviewed in the Antioch University Santa Barbara community hall by KCRW morning edition house Jonathan Bastian.

Felicia D. Henderson is the award-winning creator of the landmark Showtime Network hit Soul Food: The Series, television’s first long-running multi-season drama featuring African Americans. She is also the Co-Creator and Executive Producer of The Quad, a one-hour drama for BET Networks which starred Tony Award-winners Anika Noni Rose and Ruben Santiago-Hudson and was named one of the “Top 15 Shows to Watch” by The New York Times in 2017.

In 2017-2018, Ms. Henderson co-executive produced the Netflix adaptation of Marvel’s The Punisher, which debuted in Fall 2017. The successful writer/director/producer also executive produced Single Ladies and Reed Between The Lines for BET Networks. She has written and co-executive produced such high-profile shows as Gossip Girl, Fringe and Everybody Hates Chris. Additional credits include: Sister Sister, Moesha, Family Matters, and The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air.

After beginning her writing career in sitcoms, Ms. Henderson turned her attention to television drama writing and received three NAACP Best Drama Awards for Soul Food; a Gracie Allen Award for her depiction of women; and a Prism Award for Accurate Depictions of Social Issues. She also garnered a Writers Guild of America nomination for Fringe and a Gracie Award for The Quad.

Having earned B.A. and M.F.A. degrees from UCLA, Ms. Henderson was honored with UCLA’s Tom Bradley Alumnus of the Year Award in 2014 and the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Alumni Achievement Award in 2010. Continually in pursuit of knowledge, she is a Ph.D. candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA. Her research interests include: culture, class, race, and gender issues in television writers’ rooms, political economics of the 2007 WGA strike, and the “othering” of single women in the media. She has written chapters for two text books, and her critical essays have been published in some of the most prestigious academic journals in her field.

Ms. Henderson is a member of the Diversity Committee for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab; a trustee for the Humanitas Prize, and mentor for the Humanitas Prize New Voices program. She is a Diamond Life Member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (a public service sorority); a board member of Dancing N.E.D. (a non-profit that raises funds for the treatment of women’s cancers); an honorary board member of Los Angeles based Coalition for Restoring At-Risk Youth (a non-profit that provides social, mental and medical care to at-risk and homeless youth); and a Writers Guild of America trustee who serves on the Pension and Health Insurance Committee.