Hello.

McNandez is a queer, married writing team living in Pasadena, California. Together, they are your average, interracial, same-sex couple of moms obsessed with the surreality of the living world and the intrigue of the afterlife. A city kid and a country kid, respectively, Irene and Kelsey struggled to find their place in the wider world. Once the gay heavens aligned and brought them together, they began weaving their disparate backgrounds and complementary sensibilities to write familiar but fresh stories that only they can tell, through the lens of characters never seen on television. They mercilessly put those characters through the wringer in dark dramedy pilots about women who break away from norms and expectations, and the chosen family that joins them in the fight. They’ve been semifinalists for the Writers on the Verge and Warner Brothers Writers Workshop fellowships. Irene and Kelsey were recent Diversity Initiative fellows at Roadmap Writers and have studied television writing at Script Anatomy. They want others to know that although they are lesbian moms, they are not interested in adopting any cats.

Individually, they are:

Irene Hernandez is a Los Angeles native. The child of former migrant farmworkers, she surprised/disappointed her hard-working parents by earning an impractical Master of Professional Writing degree with an emphasis in screenwriting from the University of Southern California. She is a former contributor to the Onion News Network, and her short screenplay, Dwell Time, was an Official Selection at the Irvine International Film Festival, and a finalist at the Omaha Film Festival. She is currently a work-from-home mom to her and Kelsey’s five-year-old daughter.

Kelsey McConnell grew up in Lompoc, California (Flower Seed Capital of the World), and earned a bachelor’s degree in American Literature and Culture from UCLA. Kelsey runs a host talent program and produces classical music content as Program Director for Classical California, which operates KUSC in Los Angeles, and KDFC in San Francisco.