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Hal Ackerman

Hal Ackerman has been a faculty member of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television since 1985 and is currently the co-chair of the Screenwriting Program. Among his close mentees are filmmaker Sacha Gervasi, screenwriters Pamela Gray, Scott Kosar and Nicholas Griffin. "Write Screenplays That Sell...The Ackerman Way” is now in its third printing and is becoming the text of choice in a growing number of screenwriting programs around the country. He has sold material to all the broadcast networks and major studios, and has had numerous short stories published in literary journals, including North Dakota Review, New Millennium Writing, The Pinch, Words and Pictures, Southeast Review and Passages.

His story “Sweet Day” was read by Academy Award nominee Robert Forster and is available at the HarperCollins Publishers Digital Media Cafe. And “The Dancer Horse,” read by Adrian Pasdar, is available on Audible. His story “Alfalfa” was included in the anthology “I Wanna Be Sedated...30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers”; “Walk Through” was among Southeast Review’s World’s Best Short Shorts; “The Dancer Horse” received a Pushcart Nomination ; and “Belle and Melinda” was selected as the winner of the World's Best Short Short Story contest. He has also published two successful, award-winning novels in a detective series about an aging counter-culture P.I.: Stein.