Ep 39: A Conversation On Film, Love and Finding Your Way Back To Your Craft - Felicia Pride, TV Writer, Producer And Award-Winning Filmmaker, Talks Storytelling And Her Journey To Hollywood

Felicia Pride

T.V. Writer, Producer and Award-Winning Filmmaker

Today’s episode features T.V. writer, producer and award-winning filmmaker, Felicia Pride. Felicia has written on Ava DuVernay’s “Queen Sugar,” and is currently a producer on “Grey’s Anatomy” in addition to developing shows with FX and Netflix.

In 2020, Felicia’s film Really Love, for which she is the writer and executive producer, debuted on Netflix, becoming a Top Ten Movie on the platform and quickly cementing its place among the classics, depicting the expansiveness of Black love through romance, friendship, art and much more. Through her production company, Honey Chile, Felicia is committed to producing cultural content centering the full lives of Black women over the age of 40.

Listen as Felicia takes us through her journey from writer to screen writer and filmmaker, including how a seven year hiatus from her craft ultimately led her to embracing the gift, commitment and purpose of being a storyteller.

Conversation Highlights

Myriha (Host): In both tender and Really Love there’s a common thread of Black creatives having to constantly balance between pursuing their artistic dreams, be it a filmmaker or a painter, and finding a stable or corporate job with benefits and salary, etc. What advice would you have for Black creatives who are currently struggling between these two different worlds?

Felicia Pride (Guest): I really had to reestablish my relationship with the work. For a long time I put the pressure on writing to financially support me. Once I let that go and I just focused on the craft of it and finding other ways to make money that were outside of the writing things started to open up for me.

So for instance, when I moved here I got a good job working in film distribution, which was very much an extension of what I was doing as an impact producer. I loved my job, was going to film festivals like Sundance, helping filmmakers devise distribution plans, acquiring documentaries, etc. Then I got laid off, and it was devastating. But it was a time to recalibrate, right? Why I came to LA.

In that recalibration, I had to do many things: One, I had to get re reignite my relationship and make a more healthy relationship with writing. It's not writing’s responsibility to financially support me, it is my responsibility to financially support me. It was a nuanced difference that helped me psychologically. Two, I had to do a lot of self-work. I had a lot of issues around low self-worth, particularly as a “struggling artist.” So I had to work on those things. And, and then three, I had to make the work.

I had to prioritize writing. There was nothing more important than writing at that time, including bill paying. So what I did was I found a job that was flexible, it was virtual, it was for an old client in a different capacity. I was an executive assistant and I was not very good at it. But what it did, it did not take a lot of creative capacity, it took a different capacity. So I now had a lot of creative capacity and I was writing in the mornings and the evenings, I was developing and redeveloping a creative practice. And that helped tremendously to have that creative practice that I started my day with.

Connect with Felicia Pride

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Myriha Burce