Inevitable Foundation Unveils 2026 Accelerate Fellows

Exclusive: The Inevitable Foundation has announced the six members selected for its Accelerate 2026 program. This year's fellows are Erica Lin, Peter H. Lee, David Radcliffe, Emma Layden, and writing partners Kyla Harris and Ella Glendinning. Read more about each of them below. We are very excited to have Erica, Peter, David, Emma, Kyla, […]

EXCLUSIVE: The Inevitable Foundation announced the six members selected for the Accelerate 2026 program.

This year's contributors include Erica Lane, Peter H. Lee, David Radcliffe, Emma Layden, and writing partners Kyla Harris and Ella Glendinning.

Marisa Turley-Cyfituska of the Richie Pediowska Foundation and Associates said: "We are thrilled to welcome Erica, Peter, David, Emma, Kayla and Ella as our 2026 Accelerator Fellows. This group of successful writers demonstrates the vast talent of creatives with disabilities, and we can't wait to help them take their projects to the next level." Statement to Deadline RELATED STORIES A Quiet's Millicent Simmonds to write, star in crime thriller Grace for Inevitable Studios.

The Acceleration Grant, supported by Netflix, is a four-month program that awards film and television writers with disabilities $30,000 in funding and customized mentoring to develop a film or television script. Participants have access to writers' groups, individual mentoring, Inevitable Foundation staff mentoring, and access to prominent film and television writers throughout the program. Watch on Deadline

The new cohort joins 20 previously awarded fellows who have received nearly $700,000 in unrestricted funding since 2021, when the Inevitable Foundation was established. The organization has extensively supported more than 160 disabled writers, filmmakers and podcasters with more than $1.5 million in funding over the past five years.

Here are some more details about the 2026 Accelerate Fellows:

Erica Lane writes about the things we can't change through horror and humor, exploring passion, helplessness, and family attachment. He has written four films for Lifetime TV, and his first short, RAW, premiered at the New Hampshire Film Festival. He's currently writing and starring in the upcoming indie comedy series Subs, making two feature films together, and exploring his debut novel, Splits. A member of the Television Academy, he holds an MFA from USC in screenwriting and is repped by Corey Trent Akerman and John Tomko at Evoke Entertainment.

Peter H. Lee is a Korean American drama writer who is passionate about emotional stories that use extreme situations to explore the complexities and contradictions of human nature. After losing his dominant arm to cancer, Lee learned how a disability can profoundly change the way he moves and sees the world. He wrote Avatar: Seven Havens and Jurassic World: Chaos Theory and developed serialized stories in popular franchises. A native Angeleno, Lee brings a perspective formed by exploring different cultures and communities.

David Radcliffe's work straddles genres and formats, but his favorite projects are those that challenge understanding and empathy through humor and expectations. David has appeared on series including The Rookie and The Tracker, and for five years served as chair or co-chair of the WGA West Committee on Disabled Writers, where he advocated for greater opportunities for disabled talent in film and television. His original short film, Call the A.D.A., won Best Writing from the EasterSeals Disability Film Challenge and became a series of real-life adventures that put the disability community in the spotlight. He also wrote an episode of Disney Junior's Pupstruction that teaches kids the value of accessible spaces for everyone. He is repped by Mark Monier and Dylan Conklin at Entertainment360.

Emma Layden is a comedy writer from New York who has a very rare physical disability known as multiple pterygoid syndrome—a little like muscular dystrophy, a little like cerebral palsy, and definitely Miranda. He writes about down-to-earth and complex characters who find themselves in ridiculous situations and are surrounded by ridiculous people. A 2017 graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Dramatic Writing, her credits include Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS and the hit Netflix/Nickelodeon series, Sharkdog. She is currently the disability correspondent for The Recount, where her videos have garnered millions of views and is hosted by Mollie Gillespie.

Ella Glendinning and Kayla Harris are both BAFTA-nominated creatives dedicated to telling bold, empowering and humane stories of disabled people, inspired by their own experiences of loving themselves. Unapologetically in an ableist world, Ella is the award-winning director of Is There Anybody Out There? And he is currently writing the historical drama Curiosity of Fools with the support of the British Film Institute. Kyla co-produced and starred in the BBC series Two We Might Regret This and produced the Emmy Award-winning documentary Patrice: The Movie. Kyla is also repped by Ikenna Obikwe at Independent Talent Group and Becky Williams at Conway Van Gelder Grant. Kayla and Ella met in Brighton in 2018 and immediately had a deep connection. Together, the two are developing a folk horror feature called Living Saints, which follows two disabled women accused of witchcraft in 1500s Scotland.

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