Austin Film Festival Taps Larry Wilmore for TV Writing Award

By Dave McNary

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference has selected Larry Wilmore as the recipient of its 2018 Outstanding Television Writer Award.

The award will be at the 25th Annual , which runs from Oct. 25 to Nov. 1. The awards lunch takes place on Oct. 27.

Wilmore has been a television producer, actor, comedian, and writer for more than 25 years. He broke into show business in 1991 as a writer for “In Living Color,” followed by “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “The PJ’s” (which he co-created with star Eddie Murphy), and “The Office” (where he appeared as Mr. Brown, the diversity consultant).

In 2001, Wilmore created “The Bernie Mac Show,” which ran for five seasons on Fox and earned him an Emmy Award in 2002 for outstanding writing for a comedy series as well as a 2001 Peabody Award. Recently, Wilmore helped launch ABC’s “Black-ish” as an executive producer. He also serves as the co-creator and consulting producer on HBO’s “Insecure,” which he developed with star Issa Rae.

Wilmore is also known for his appearances as the “Senior Black Correspondent” on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and as the host of Comedy Central’s “The Nightly Show with ,” which debuted in 2015 and ran for nearly two years.

Wilmore will join previously announced awardees Roger Corman (Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking), Tony Gilroy (Distinguished Screenwriter), and Daniel Petrie, Jr.(Heart of Film). Panelists for this year’s Writers Conference include Megan Amram, John August, Lindsey Beer, Wendy Calhoun, Mary Coleman, Lindsay Doran, Lee Eisenberg, Nicole Holofcener, Rick Jaffa, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Nicole Perlman, Amanda Silver, and Linda Woolverton.