Little Ol' Me

Dierra Barlow is a born and bred, Midwest Black, queer human living and loving in Saginaw, Michigan. The daughter of a minister mother and an associate pastor father, she grew up destined to tell stories. She was constantly glued to the TV screen, that is, whenever she wasn't playing basketball or softball. She was bound for a collegiate career, until she found herself in a hospital bed after tearing her ACL in her first high school basketball game. Proving too tough to recover from, she turned to her second love, the page and hasn’t stopped writing since. She prides herself on portraying intergenerational stories that depict complex queer characters in all their splendor. Dierra is an alumna of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Gold Rising program and has development experience with Circle of Confusion, Flavor Unit Entertainment, and Paris Films. Dierra holds a B.A. in Film, Television, and Media with a concentration in Screenwriting and minors in Creative Writing and Afroamerican and African Studies from the University of Michigan (c/o 2021) and an unofficial minor in Theatre (Acting/Directing) from the University of Indianapolis. With her first two screenplays, IN HER IMAGE and THE ARCHIVES, she's become a finalist in Diverso’s Black Writers in Focus screenwriting competition and twice for the University of Michigan’s The Peter and Barbara Benedek Award for Best Screenplay and an award-winning creator for the pilot episode of her original series Weaksiders, produced last fall at The University of Michigan. She currently works as a book and script coverage reader/writer.  In her free time, she loves to make music and write poetry.