Max Timm is the Director of Education with the International Screenwriters’ Association, and the President of The Story Farm Development and Coaching service, with 15 years of experience in developing written material and writers’ careers. His focus with the ISA is to build a creative community and bring ISA writers closer to managers, agents, and producers. Recently he has helped build the ISA Development Slate, submitting writers’ projects on their behalf and helping them launch their careers—18 writers have received options and representation since 2015 because of Max’s assistance and support.
His personal coaching, consulting, and development service, The Story Farm, develops writers and their material much like a studio executive or literary manager would, walking a writer through the rewrite process one draft at a time. His online classes, titled The Craft Course in Screenwriting, offer writers an in-depth yet easy to understand approach to the professional full development process. In order to connect with as many aspiring writers as possible, he also helped create and launch the ISA’s popular Curious About Screenwriting interview-focused podcast, as well as his solo podcast, The Craft. Most recently, he and the co-head of the ISA Development Slate, Felicity Wren, launched a live Facebook broadcast series called Wine Wednesdays; an informal “script chat” weekly series where they discuss all elements of the entertainment industry while sipping on some tasty wine. Aside from focusing on education, Max has joined forces with his ISA cohorts Felicity Wren and Craig James to launch a production and development shingle called Creative Screenwriter where they will develop and produce low to mid-range budgeted films written by the ISA’s top members.
A development consultant, producer, and screenwriting instructor, Max is a screenwriter and author himself. His debut novel, a young adult fantasy adventure titled The WishKeeper, about a teenage fairy with broken wings, won the young adult category of the 2015 Los Angeles Book Festival and released nationwide in the Summer of 2016 (book two is set to release in 2019). Max has also served as a part-time instructor at UCLA, and travels nationally speaking at various industry events such as the Sundance Film Festival, Nashville Writers Conference, Napa Valley Film Festival and the Spokane Writers Conference. Most recently Max released his debut book on screenwriting titled, (Not Just) Another Book on The Craft of Screenwriting. He is currently writing a non-fiction book on hedge fund activists and Wall Street.