MEET THE HOSTS
About Isabel
A cafe owner turned romcom screenwriter in Los Angeles, Isabel Thottam writes refreshingly honest stories from new perspectives. An Emerson College alumna and Ohio native, Isabel has traveled the world, worked various jobs, and has started multiple small businesses. She loves to write relatable romantic comedies with female protagonists. Isabel got her first screenwriting opportunity after writing a romcom parody about Zac Efron’s attempt to use Tinder. The script, DATING ZAC EFRON, scored a 7 on The Black List and was a Quarterfinalist in the 2023 Table Read My Screenplay competition. Isabel is also passionate about supporting local farmers and organic agriculture. She works for Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles as the Program Manager for eat!, an online farmers market ordering platform.
About Aviva
Aviva Peltin is a Seattle area-based screenwriter and author of “It’s Easy Being Green: How Conscious Consumers and Ecopreneurs Can Save the World.” She has a bachelor’s in English from the University of Washington with an emphasis in creative writing. These days she's focused on writing sparkly female-driven romcoms you’d rewatch at sleepovers. Her scripts have placed in the Table Read My Screenplay Competition Cannes, ScreenCraft Comedy Competition, the ScreenCraft Fellowship, Female Voices Rock, Launch Pad, and more. Her comedy feature inspired by the Mary-Kate and Ashley franchise, TWINSIES, scored a 7 on the Black List. She signed her first shopping agreement in 2023. If she’s not writing, you’ll find her barefoot in nature, knitting, or looking for dogs in sweaters.
Aviva and Isabel’s “meet cute” happened not at a coffee shop or the airport . . . .
It happened on Twitter (before it sucked).
They did a script feedback exchange.
Isabel sent Aviva her romcom, DATING ZAC EFRON, and Aviva sent Isabel her comedy, TWINSIES. They were obsessed with each other’s projects.
DATING ZAC EFRON: Actor Zac Efron is trying to change his career and ditch his charming romantic roles for characters with more depth when his world collides with an average girl who works at Tinder when she is tasked with verifying the authenticity of his online dating account.
TWINSIES: Double the trouble, double the fun as estranged adult twins reunite in Austria and get sucked into an early 2000s twin-themed alternate dimension, realizing that their old summer bucket list might be their only hope to escape the nostalgia.
They bonded fast over their mutual love of romcoms, early-2000s nostalgia, and telling empowering, female-driven, sparkly stories.
The rest is history.