Joel Wayne
Fellowships 2026
I am independently producing an audio series about a woman in her mid-fifties named Charlie. Charlie is married, no kids, a speech-language pathologist by day, helping patients with head trauma and strokes and all those terrible things you never expect. She has a habit of leaving long meandering voicemails to her sister, her mother, her editor friend, and her nephew in college, from time to time.
Charlie is a writer by night. Back in her thirties, she published a book of short stories and a novel, back-to-back. She thought it would be her life, for a moment. But a few years later, it was like none of it ever happened. So she went back to school and became an SLP. Something she’d be good at, everyone said. And she is, even if she doesn’t love it.
Out of the wild blue, one of her short stories is optioned for a film. It actually gets made, and is well-received, so the rest of her collection is snatched up. Charlie begins to write again, frantically. Working on another book. Noodling on a script. Maybe some standup, why not? Anything to keep the ball rolling.
But as all this is happening, everything else is happening too.
Her sister-in-law is diagnosed with cancer, stage IV. Just 43, three boys under 21. Gut wrenching. But it’s Charlie’s mother who dies first, a total shock, revealing one big secret while leaving so much unanswered. Charlie is toppled with grief. Amidst all the joys and sorrows of everyday life. Of aging and healthcare. Of couples counseling, again. Of feeling more at home in her body than she’s ever felt, somehow. Of Tuesdays.