Podcast – GLOW’s Sascha Rothchild on writing for TV

GLOW writer and co-executive producer Sascha Rothchild dishes out advice on writing in this wide-ranging interview.

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Sascha Rothchild at Screen Forever

It took 10 years for writer Sascha Rothchild to become ‘an overnight success’.

Rothchild moved to Los Angeles with dreams of becoming a television writer, but couldn’t get a foot in the door.

“My voice was a little bit edgy and… my comedy was a little offensive and a little racy and at that time, there was no Netflix, there was no streaming,” she says. “I could not get hired.”

She persevered, penning feature screenplays, TV spec scripts and editorial articles. After a decade of work, it was a single story in the LA Weekly called ‘How to Get Divorced by 30’ that landed her a book deal, a film deal and an agent – all in the space of a week.

“All that 10 years of work ended up paying off, just not in the way that I thought,” she says. “And I think that’s why it’s so important to keep writing, if you want to be a writer.”

Now Rothchild is exactly that – with a list of credits that more recently includes being a writer and co-executive producer on the Netflix series GLOW.

In this podcast episode, recorded during the Screen Forever conference in November 2018, Rothchild details: her path to success; her writing process; how a writers’ room in the US works; her tips for receiving notes on your script; network vs cable; and much more.

Editor’s note: Rothchild is speaking specifically to writing for TV in the US system. For more information, refer to this interview with showrunner Alexa Junge.