PAST WINNERS AND FINALISTS

Diane Seo is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where she covered local news and business in Los Angeles and New York. She also worked as a senior editor at the arts and news site, Salon.com.

Most recently, she served as the managing director of media for the ATP, which runs men's professional tennis worldwide. Aigoo! is her first full-length feature screenplay. She currently lives in Honolulu with her husband and 10-month-old daughter.

Albert W. Lee moved back home to Orange County, CA in 2003,
after graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the
Arts, where he did a little writing for a network soap and befriended
an indie film director. Having allowed the summer to pass without
penning his Magnus Opus, Albert enlisted at Writer’s Boot
Camp where scripts were finished under the forced discipline of
highly trained instructors. He has since completed three spec
scripts: Smallville, Arrested Development, and Curb Your
Enthusiasm. Albert currently works as a high school English tutor,
college application advisor, and SAT Critical Reading and Writing
instructor.

A Southern California native, Tonya grew up in Torrance. Realizing her phenomenal basketball talent was her ticket out of the 'burbs, Tonya ruled the South Bay girls' hoop scene until a vicious elbow to the head from future WNBA M.V.P. Lisa Leslie ended her athletic dreams. Not ready to give up on sports, Tonya went to California State University, Long Beach to study Kinesiology and Athletic Training. Four years and one worthless B.A. later, the time had come to give up on sports. Changing course, she embarked on a soggy new journey that was law school at the University of Washington in Seattle. After picking up a J.D. degree and a caffeine-addiction, Tonya traded in her umbrella and the Pacific Northwest for sun block and the South Pacific when she accepted an associate attorney position in Honolulu. After four years pitching her clients? stories, she longed to tell a few of her own. Realizing her creative cravings could lead to disbarment, Tonya bid aloha to law and returned to Tinseltown, where such tendencies are sometimes rewarded.

Tonya and Kanon joined forces when it became apparent their other classmates at the U.C.L.A. graduate program in screenwriting had no interest in making friends with a lawyer or an undertaker. Licking their wounds and the bottom of a pitcher of Guinness at the Westwood Brewing Company, the ostracized pair discovered they had many similar high-minded passions, such as the danceable ditties of the Pet Shop Boys, reading US Weekly/InTouch/Star magazines for free at the newsstand, oolong tea and the seminal 80?s movie masterpiece, "St. Elmo's Fire." And so a writing partnership, but more importantly, a beautiful friendship, was born.

(See Kanon Lim Bio)

Kanon was born and raised in beautiful Kauai, Hawaii. A near-drowning incident at the tender age of six left him with an acute fear of the ocean, a condition that severely limited his leisure options growing up on an island. A love of films and books emerged in place of snorkeling and surfing. Following stints as a guava harvester and a tourist gift shop sales clerk, Kanon left the Garden Isle for the mainland to attend film school at the University of Southern California. He earned his B.F.A. in Filmic Writing, which naturally led him to his current position as Night Supervisor at Forest Lawn Mortuary. When not tending to the needs of those no longer with us, Kanon relaxes at home watching reruns of "Six Feet Under."

(See Tonya Kong Bio)

Born and raised in mainland China, Simon moved to the U.S. at the age of 25. Prior to this he was an entertainment feature reporter in Beijing. He holds a Bachelor degree in Journalism from Fudan University, Shanghai, China and a MFA in Screenwriting from USC School of Cinema and Television.

"America On My Mind" was Simon's graduate thesis at USC and since its completion, it has won him a USC distinction award and was a finalist at Sundance Screenwriting Lab. In addition to screenwriting he has also authored two well-received non-fiction books in Chinese. Currently he is working on two TV projects for both the Chinese and American markets.

Shinho Lee, born and raised in Korea, received his BFA in Film/TV and MFA in Dramatic Writing from Tisch, NYU. Currently he is enrolled in AFI's screenwriting program. He worked as a script reader and also interned at Law & Order. His short KIMONO was screened at Johns Hopkins Film Festival and his short BUTTERFLY is in process of post-production. Summer of 2001, his plays THE WATER MIRRORS (American Living Room with Lincoln Center) and BUTTERFLY (Director's Company's Don't Blink) were produced in NYC. His full length play DREAM OF NO WORDS was short-listed for Young Writers Programme, Royal Court, London, his monologue EMPTY HANDS was published in Monologues For Men By Men (Heinemann Press) and his screenplay THE RED SNOW was a semi-finalist for The Nicholl

Angie Suh was born in Seoul, Korea, but grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, from the age of five. She attended Purdue University then Columbia College in Chicago where she studied all aspects of film production: writing, shooting, editing and acting. Her first screenplay was a Disney Fellowship Semi-Finalist in 1994. In her first starring role in a feature she received raves as "Grace," in Chris Chan Lee's "Yellow." In 2002 she won the Helen Fong Dare Scholarship in the Arts, based on her feature submission, "Mr. Lee and the Quadroon." She is currently finishing a comedy feature, developing reality show ideas, writing shorts for DV production, and auditioning.

Dennis Kao has worked in tv production for FOX and CBS, as an executive assistant to tv/film producer Bill Todman, Jr. at Warner Brothers (X-Men, Wild Wild West), and is currently the production manager at Time Warner Audiobooks, where he produces, directs, and supervises the production of audiobooks published by Warner Books, Little-Brown, and Talk Miramax Books.

He has previously optioned the screenplay HOW TO MAKE LOVE TO A WOMAN, was a finalist for the Paramount Studios children's screenwriting contest, a participant in Lodestone Theater's tv writing workshop, and is currently completing SWORDSMEN, an epic play of valor and loyalty in medieval China.

Alice Wu, 2000 CAPE Foundation New Writer Awards Winner "Saving Face" is a feel-good social satire that asks the question: What would happen if your 48-year-old widowed Chinese mother got kicked out of the Chinese community for getting pregnant, and you were forced to take her in and find her a husband? Set in New York City, the story is told from the viewpoint of a Chinese-American lesbian in her late 20's, and its humor arises from the clash of cultures that constitute modern-day life in urban America.

Cynthia is a writer-filmmaker and holds a graduate degree in English literature. She's written short fiction, novels, essays, and several screenplays. Her scripts have reached semi-finalist status or higher at the following contests: American Accolades, Austin Heart of Film, the Disney Screenwriting Fellowship, the Chesterfield Writers Film Project (twice with different scripts), and the Sundance Screenwriting Lab (twice, with different scripts). She was the first CAPE New Writers Award screenplay winner and has since directed and produced her own work.

In 2004, Pathfinder Pictures will distribute her award-winning short film, the all-Asian American romantic comedy RED THREAD. It's now completing a lengthy run on the festival circuit. Another short, A. EYE FOR THE WHITE GUY (a spoof of a similarly-titled, popular cable TV makeover show), is currently exhibiting in international film festivals. She's in pre-production on a documentary short and developing one of her feature scripts to direct.

Her fiction has also won numerous prizes. Her first novel will be published in 2005.