Troy Story: Where the Character Arcs Begin

Here are brief profiles of the eight former USC students interviewed for this article:

Andrew “Drew” Landis grew up in Quakertown, Pa., having been brought to the U.S. from South Korea in the 1970s. He received a bachelor of arts degree from New York University and worked as a political writer in Washington before entering the Graduate Screenwriting Program.

Brian Peterson came from the Flathead Valley of Montana and graduated from a small college in Oregon before joining the GSP.

Julia Rosen lived in Los Angeles before earning a bachelor of arts from Columbia University in New York. While in the production master of fine arts program at USC, she received the Jeffrey Jones Screenwriting Award, and two of her student films won first place awards at festival competitions.

Kelly Souders grew up on a ranch in Missouri and later survived Detroit as a campaign manager and trekking through back roads of Indonesia. Souders, formerly a fiction writer, enrolled in the GSP, where her feature thesis won highest honors.

Michele Takahashi majored in history and political science at UC Riverside and then studied in UCLA’s graduate history program before entering USC’s GSP. She flavors her writings with insights from her Japanese background.

Eric Trueheart grew up in upstate New York and graduated with a degree in English literature from Harvard before entering the GSP. He has done professional improv comedy, and a half-hour comedy he wrote before graduate school aired on cable’s Sci-Fi Channel.

Gib Wallis graduated with honors from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and then moved on to the University of London, where he studied playwriting. Having won awards for stage, he wrote, performed and directed plays off-off-Broadway and on London’s fringe before entering the GSP.

Wendy West grew up in New Mexico, went to a small college in Minnesota and then hit a kind of “big time” doing comedy improv with Second City in Chicago before entering the production master of fine arts program at USC. She is currently a staff writer on “Three,” a WB series that premiered Monday.