Creative Lab Hawaiʻi

Liz Alper

Liz Alper is a Hapa 1-hour television writer and current writer/producer on the ABC series The Rookie. She has worked for such auspices as Dick Wolf (Law & Order and Chicago franchises), Peter Lenkov (Hawaii Five-0, MacGyver), David Shore (House, The Good Doctor) and David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies and every other show that came out in the ’90s). Originally from Rhode Island, Liz grew up with dreams of performing on Broadway, except she couldn’t act or sing and had such bad stage fright that she couldn’t even write personal bios in the first person. She has a deep love for musicals, cartoons, baking shows and inclusion in the writer’s room. She most recently created the #WGASolidarityChallenge and 2019 Comprehensive Staffing grids as part of a grassroots effort to lift up and promote writers during staffing season.

Tery Lopez

Tery Lopez is the Director of Inclusion and Equity at the Writers Guild of America West. Previously, she was conference director for the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. Ms. Lopez began her career in the film industry as an assistant to producers, Moctesuma Esparza and Robert Katz (Selena, Gettysburg, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge). Later, she worked as part of Moctesuma Esparza’s, Maya Pictures development team, producing 13 episodes of the Sí TV comedy series, Circumsized Cinema. She also worked as post-production coordinator for the HBO film, Walkout, and was co-producer of the feature film Innocent Voices, which was Mexico’s official entry to the 2005 Academy Awards.

Tery received her B.A. in Telecommunications and Film from the California State University at Los Angeles.

Laurie Parres

Laurie Parres won a Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Writing for the “Mel vs. The Night Mare of Normal Street” episode of “Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street.” She served as Co-Executive Producer all three seasons of the Amazon series.

She’s written multi-camera sitcoms (“Spin City, “Whoopi,” and others), single-camera half hours (“School of Rock,” and others), and one-hour dramas (“Charmed,” “Bollywood Hero” — an IFC mini-series shot in India.)

Her years on writing staffs inspired her 2014 TED Active talk “What I Learned In the Sitcom Writers’ Room.”

Laurie earned a Master of Professional Writing degree from University of Southern California. 

She lives in Los Angeles, works internationally, and is excited to be part of Creative Lab.

Jim Uhls

Jim Uhls wrote Fight Club, directed by David Fincher; Jumper, directed by Doug Limon; and the NBC television film, Semper Fi, which he produced with Steven Spielberg.  He recently finished working on the feature script adaptation of The Destroyer novel series for Shane Black.  Currently, his script, Leviathan, is in development at 20th Century Fox, and he is writing a TV pilot for Alcon Entertainment, based on the novel, Survivor, by Chuck Palahniuk.  A playwright as well, Jim had his play, The Relative Importance of Jeri, produced in New York, and numerous plays produced in Los Angeles, including Collections of a Long-Distance Garbageman.